


The Choice

by appleapple



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Basement what basement, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, First Time, Jean and Armin are bros, M/M, Manga spoilers through Chapter 84, Post-84 fall out, Team Dynamics, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-10 15:29:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 34,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7850626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/appleapple/pseuds/appleapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After their return from Shinganshina the survivors are doing their best to pick up the pieces.  When someone intrudes on their fragile peace, will it be an opportunity--or disaster?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Having worst day/week/whatever. Ugh. Gross. Dislike. Please send cat astronaut stickers to me, or kudos, or whatever.
> 
> Some of my ideas will definitely get mulliganed before the next issue comes out, so I decided to start posting now rather than being vaguely unhappy and doing exhaustive rewrites later. And (clearly!) these are not canon predictions, but rather an exploration of ideas that I think are interesting but won't happen (the guilt/blame/emotional parts, not the as you will soon see more fantastical elements). I am interested to see where this one goes though, hopefully you will be too <3 Feedback much loved.

Up in Hanji’s lab they were uncrating boxes and moving furniture. It was the kind of thing that--just a few months ago--Squad Hanji would have been doing, with Hanji herself enthusiastically supervising. 

But the Survey Corp was still operating with a skeleton crew, and Commander Hanji no longer had time for mundane chores like unpacking. So today it’s just them. 

All morning everyone had been quiet and subdued. Armin wondered if their thoughts were straying in the same direction as his own. That was probably why when Jean and Eren started sniping at each other no one interfered; it made things feel almost _normal_. 

“Would you watch it with that thing?”

“You’re moving too slow, get out of the damn way!”

“You get out of my way!”

Jean shoved Eren, and he staggered back, holding on to the box in his arms. He narrowed his eyes at the other boy, and then--

Armin was pushing them _both_ out of the way. A brilliant flash of light had appeared, almost right where they’d been standing. He’d jumped forward without thinking; Jean tripped over a box and the three of them landed in a heap as something heavy fell with a _thud_ to the floor.

“What--”

Someone was groaning. Armin was the first to scramble up, his heart racing, looking anxiously at the place where the light had appeared. But it was gone--and lying there on the floor was someone who hadn’t been there a moment earlier.

He looked up--Mikasa was standing across the room, looking as shocked as he was. 

_It’s real,_ he thought, dizzily. _Or at least not in my head, if she sees it too._

Sasha poked her head up cautiously from behind a desk, and Connie lowered the broom he’d been brandishing. Behind Armin, Eren and Jean were getting to their feet.

“What was that light--who’s that?”

Armin swallowed. But of course, no one knew what they looked like from behind, did they?

“Eren,” he whispered, and the man in the middle of the floor jerked up at the sound of his name, “it’s you.”

Eren had come forward; he stared at the man on the floor. He had rolled over, and he was staring back. Apart from being older he was Eren’s double in every way, and he looked as stunned as they did. Eren had put a hand on Armin’s shoulder but he was speechless. They all were.

The other Eren quickly surveyed the room, taking them all in. Eren, Jean, and Armin in front of him--Connie, Sasha, and Mikasa behind.

If any of them doubted that it was really Eren--that it might have been a trick, an illusion--it fled when he spoke.

“Oh, man,” the other Eren said, running a hand through his hair. “Man, man, man. Hanji, what did you _do?”_

He got unsteadily to his feet and looked them all over again, more closely this time. “Holy shit you guys are just babies!” he said. He put both hands on his head. “What--” He turned around in a slow circle, and then he stopped at Armin and swallowed hard. “Have we gone back to Shinganshina yet?”

“Yeah--we. A couple months back,” Armin said haltingly.

Then Eren spoke. “What’s going on?” he said; he sounded terrified. “Who are you?”

The other Eren looked annoyed. “I’m _you,_ dumbass.”

“You’re not me! You’re too old, and you don’t sound anything like me!”

“He sounds exactly like you,” Mikasa said. “But, older.”

“I don’t sound like that!”

“No, you really do,” Jean said.

“Are you from the future?” Armin asked, interrupting all of them. “Hanji--you said, did she--do something? Build something?”

“I’m from...a future, I guess,” the older Eren said. He dropped his hands to his sides, then sat down heavily on a table. “But not yours. I’m twenty-four, and...Armin, you didn’t survive the Battle of Shinganshina.”

“Oh,” Armin said, not as upset by this as the others suddenly were. Eren gasped and squeezed his shoulder tighter. 

“Then Levi saved Erwin?” he demanded.

Something flickered over the older Eren’s face--sadness, maybe. But Armin knew that was a fruitless line of questioning, so he repeated himself. “Hanji--”

“No, she--damn, there’s so much that’s happened.” Eren ran his hands through his hair again. “All right. After we killed the Beast--”

“Did he die at Shinganshina?”

“Yes--” again that flicker of sadness as he remembered. “Levi--” he looked around suddenly. “Where _is_ Levi?”

“He’s at the training camp with the new recruits.”

“What!” the older Eren yelled. “He left you _alone?”_

“We’re not kids!” Eren snapped at him, and the look his double gave him back was priceless; Jean snorted, and even Armin couldn’t help smiling a little.

“Everyone, please,” Armin said. “Stop interrupting, for now. We need to figure out what’s happened. You were saying. After the Beast.”

The other Eren nodded. “More intelligent Titans came, later. And then they just--stopped. It’s been years since the last attack. Hanji said we ought to send an expedition outside the Walls, after we retook the land between Maria and Rose. To try to find the village they came from--to try to find answers. That’s what we were doing. We found a temple that had writing inside that no one could read, and we brought back some artifacts we found.

“Hanji was the one that realized they were broken fragments of--something. She put them together, and when it was complete she showed it to me and then--I don’t know what happened.” He sighed. “The next moment, I was here! It must be something to do with the coordinate.”

“What do you know about that?” Armin asked carefully.

“Not much more than you do,” he said, looking troubled. “It’s why we went looking for answers.”

“We need to go to Hanji now, and tell her what’s happening,” Armin said decisively. 

“She’s the commander now?” the older Eren asked. “In her office?”

“Yeah…”

Without waiting any longer he stood up and walked to the door; the others had to scramble to keep up.

“Armin,” Eren said, in a low desperate voice as they followed everyone out, “I don’t really sound like that, do I?”

“Well...yes,” Armin said trying to be reassuring. “But you don’t sound bad.”

“That’s not what I sound like in my head--” Eren complained.

 

 

 

 

Hanji stared from one to the other of them in her office; Eren looked far more uncomfortable than his doppelganger.

“What--” she said.

But before Armin could speak the older Eren had taken charge. He gave her a brief summary of what had happened--much more concise and commanding than he’d been upstairs. He seemed to have found his footing. Armin didn’t mind being shunted to the side; he was always more comfortable as an observer anyway. He was deeply curious about this older version of his friend and he studied him while he and Hanji spoke.

He was at least six feet tall, and muscular, but he had a slimmer build than Jean say, or...Erwin. His hair was tidier and he was dressed in an SC uniform. More tan than Eren, and definitely more self-assured, maybe even a little arrogant. He moved easily, gracefully, confidently. As if he were used to commanding and being obeyed.

Eren himself looked almost more unhappy than Armin had ever seen him. He kept shooting glances at the older Eren that betrayed his uneasiness and anxiety.

“We need to get to the temple,” the older Eren finished by saying. “I need to get back.”

“Eren--” both Erens looked at her, and she blinked, disconcerted. “I don’t suppose one of you would mind being Jaeger, while we figure this out?”

“That’s fine,” the older Eren--now Jaeger--said. 

“Jaeger, it isn’t even safe to travel to Shinganshina right now--never mind outside the walls. And once you’re there--if it’s as you say, and this artifact has been destroyed--”

“When we were there it seemed as if someone else had been there, not long before us. Whatever has happened--it seems as if I’ve been sent back far enough that it might still be intact. And if not, I’ll bring it to you--I’ve seen you build it once, already.”

Hanji looked uncomfortable faced with Jaeger’s full confidence in her.

“Hanji,” Jaeger said, his voice impassioned and urgent. “This is important. I’m not as smart as you or Armin, but I know this is important. I know how significant my Hanji thought it was. In my world, Armin died at Shinganshina. He’s alive here--and I think that gives you all an advantage we’ve never had. If we can find the temple, I can go home--and maybe you can learn the secrets they’re hiding.”

Hanji gave him a long look. Then she said, “All right--the rest of you please wait outside now.”

“Commander!” Eren burst out. “You can’t let us leave you alone with this--this imposter!”

“Eren, if he wants to kill me I’m sure there are more subtle ways to do it,” Hanji said mildly. “Go wait outside.”

Unhappily he left with the others, muttering protests.

“Armin?” Jean said, when they were out in the corridor. The door to Hanji’s office was soundproof. “What do you think?”

“He’s got to know more than he’s telling us. I’m sure Hanji wants to know what it is before making a decision.”

“Why not tell all of us everything he knows!” Eren protested.

“I don’t know,” Armin said, though he had a pretty good guess. “I think he’s told us the truth so far. We’ll have to see what the commander says.”

Hanji had given them implicit permission to stay and they did, cooling their heels in the corridor outside for more than an hour, wondering and speculating to each other.

Eren was obviously upset. He wouldn’t talk to them at all, just stood against the wall with his arms crossed, and he rebuffed Mikasa when she tried to comfort him.

“He’s not taking it well,” she observed privately to Armin, coming to sit next to him.

“Does he ever?”

Armin thought he had a pretty good understanding of his friend’s feelings most of the time; he could only _imagine_ how Eren was feeling right now. How would _anyone_ feel, suddenly being faced with another version of themselves?

Everything had changed since they’d come back. In some ways he had grown closer to Eren than he’d been before. He and Eren were the only Titans on the side of humanity, after all. Eren wasn’t alone anymore. 

But in other ways Armin felt more distant from him than ever.

Armin thought of Levi’s choice, Erwin’s sacrifice, all the time. He still wasn’t sure it had been the right thing to do. Eren swore to him that it had been and he had spent so much time trying to convince Armin of that, that Armin had started to wonder if he wasn’t really trying to convince himself.

The guilt was something they all carried, whether they talked about it or not. There wasn’t a single one of his friends that Armin hadn’t stumbled upon quietly crying in a corner in the last few months. Even if it wasn’t their fault their actions, their choices had contributed to the bloody massacre at Shinganshina. Each of them wondered if things could have been different. If another choice could have saved their friends and comrades.

Armin wondered if the others felt as unworthy as he did.

There was also something Armin hadn’t figured out yet. Before they’d gone back to Shinganshina Eren had been totally devoted to the Captain. No one was quicker to obey his commands or more determined to win his approval. It was something he’d endured considerable teasing over, to his utter indifference.

If anything Armin had guessed that Eren’s devotion would _increase_ after their return. Levi had changed his mind after all, and saved Armin instead of Erwin. And Erwin had died...

They had had a mass funeral after coming back. It had been full of speeches... Armin had watched their two surviving officers carefully, and he’d seen Hanji free with her grief. Levi...maybe it was just knowing what he’d lost, and maybe it was knowing him better. But Armin didn’t think he’d ever seen through the mask so well. Outwardly Levi was the calmest of them all, supporting Hanji through her tears.

What they’d lost, all of them, was almost incalculable. But Levi...he’d lost everything, hadn’t he? Or close enough. And Armin didn’t blame himself. He hadn’t asked to be saved--it hadn’t been his decision. But he knew his friends, and he knew they had begged and bullied and demanded because they loved him--not because he was the logical choice.

Hanji had been logical. Levi had been logical. They had picked Erwin, or wanted to, but something had tipped the balance in Armin’s favor. Whether it had been Eren’s pleading or something else Armin didn’t know; either way Levi had sacrificed the last thing he had. It was a legacy Armin didn’t know if he’d ever live up to.

So yes, knowing all that Armin had expected Eren to be grateful, if not downright obsequious.

He hadn’t been. It had baffled Armin, but the truth was Eren seemed almost to resent that Levi had even _considered_ saving Erwin. Eren never actually came right out and said so (so Armin could never refute it, or point out how extraordinarily _unfair_ it was, on every level) but it was clear--painfully clear--that Eren’s feelings had changed. Mikasa had noticed and subtly encouraged it; she had never been happy about Eren’s interest in the Captain.

Armin felt horrible about all of it. They were always telling him what a genius he was, and he’d never liked that but lately he was _sick_ of it. He’d been envious of his friends before, but now he’d realized what a burden it was to be ‘humanity’s hope, humanity’s strength.’ He wished he could go back to just being Armin.

Finally the door opened and Jaeger stood there. 

“Hanji says for you all to come in,” he said.

“Commander Hanji,” Eren muttered, brushing past him, and Jaeger grinned.

“Right,” Hanji said, when they were all standing before her. “You’re going to go to the training camp, and there Jaeger will explain the situation to Levi. He’ll join you, and then you’re all going to go to this temple--” she ignored the sudden protests, and continued, “where Jaeger will hopefully be able to return home. Whatever information you can glean, notes you can take, anything you can bring back here--”

“Commander, you can’t trust him!” Eren protested. “We just met him--we don’t know that he’s telling the truth about any of this. How do we know the other side didn’t send him to kill us? To lure us out, and--”

“If he tries to kill you you have my permission to fight back,” Hanji quipped. “Now. As I was saying. Jaeger is a Squad Leader. Until you rejoin with Levi, he has temporary command of the squad; you’re all to obey his orders.”

Eren was apoplectic at this point. He was only prevented from another outburst by Jean and Armin grabbing him and keeping him quiet. Hanji nodded acknowledgment, and continued, “As for the uncanny resemblance, you’re to keep the truth to yourselves. No one outside this room apart from Levi must know about this. If anyone asks Jaeger is Eren’s cousin, from a small and uninteresting village, and he’s just transferred in. Understand? Good. You’re setting out immediately, so go and pack.”

They had to drag Eren from the room but they managed; everyone left, even Jaeger. Armin was the only one who stayed behind.

“Yes, Armin?” she asked him, a knowing look on her face.

“What did he tell you?” Armin said bluntly.

She leaned back. “Why do you want to know?”

“Not all of us survive, do we?”

“If that were true, it would hardly be surprising. Considering the nature of the fight we’re in.”

Armin struggled with how to go on; it was true he could just wait for a chance to try to interrogate Jaeger, but he had a feeling Jaeger wouldn’t be as easy to unlock as Eren was. And already Eren was starting to slip away from him. Now there were things he was evasive about, when even a year ago he’d still been an open book. Well into adulthood Jaeger would no doubt be a different person entirely.

“If there’s something,” Armin said, “that’s integral to this mission, to us finding out--”

“Armin, if it were a question of your safety do you believe I’d keep anything from you?” she asked. “Jaeger doesn’t come from our future, it’s true, but he comes from _a_ future. Similar enough that if he told you about yourselves you might start to question, to doubt, to second guess every decision you’d otherwise make. _That’s_ what we spent the most time discussing. He’s told me the little he does know, and it’s nowhere near what we could wish. As for everything else, I agree that the best thing--for a variety of reasons--is to try to send him home as quickly as possible.

“And there’s this temple, too--if we can get to it, if we can learn something--”

“But what about all the Titans, between here and there?” Armin protested. “It’s suicide!”

“He has some ideas about that,” Hanji said.

“The coordinate?” Armin said in surprise. 

“It may be that there’s something he can teach Eren,” Hanji said. 

 

 

 

 

Eren was furious. He’d been on edge ever since they’d come back from Shinganshina. The new world they’d made didn’t fit him as well as the old one had. 

Nothing after had been the same. He saw ghosts everywhere. It was nothing like the victory they’d hoped for. Everyone kept saying they’d won--as if saying it enough could make it true.

He went back to his room (they’d spread out and there was more than enough room for private rooms now. Somehow that had made it all worse, not better) and packed. Only afterwards did he realize it was one of those lessons he’d learned too well from Levi.

He was the first one at the stable, after Jaeger. Alone with Jaeger. Of course.

Jaeger gave him a knowing, lopsided grin which he did not return. He scowled furiously at the ground. As if he wasn’t enough of a freak already, _this_ had to happen.

An older, taller, more attractive, more articulate, and _higher-ranking_ version of himself! It was enough to make someone much less insecure than Eren question his place in the world.

Eren wondered petulantly when the others would start to turn up. When he glanced up Jaeger was still staring at him, open and curious, not even trying to hide it.

“What?” he demanded harshly.

“Nothing,” Jaeger said, but he was smiling.

Fine. If Jaeger was going to stare he could at least give him some answers. “Why are you being so vague about what you know?” he said.

“I told Hanji...and she agrees with me. I owe it to you all not to try to change things...more than they’re going to be, anyway.”

“What?”

“Well let’s say I told you--‘tomorrow you’re going to have oatmeal for breakfast.’ Then tomorrow comes, and just to be contrary you choose toast instead of oatmeal. But you wouldn’t have chosen it, if I hadn’t told you that. So are you really choosing of your own free will, or because I interfered? Or, let’s say you do choose the oatmeal, but the whole time you’re second-guessing yourself, wondering if you’re only choosing because I told you it was what you would do, and if you really should have had toast instead. Or just skipped breakfast entirely.

“And now, multiply that times a thousand--or a hundred thousand. For everything. Every choice you all make, every decision, you deserve to decide for yourselves.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Eren said, grudgingly. “But if you knew someone was going to die, or get hurt and you told us--”

“Right, okay. Let’s say I tell you Mikasa’s going to get run over in the street--what, it could happen,” Jaeger said, as Eren barked out a surprised laugh, “and you and Connie know, so you rush in to save her. But in the confusion, Connie gets run over instead. Now _he’s_ dead. 

“Or even worse--what if something I tell you or warn you about gets you _all_ killed? There’s no way to know what’s significant and what’s not--so it’s better if I try to keep my interference as minimal as I can.”

“But I can ask you something about the past, then. Your past before right now, I mean.”

Jaeger looked surprised. “Nothing you wouldn’t already know, though. We’re the same person--”

“No,” Eren said, shaking his head vehemently. “You lost Armin!”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh,’” Eren mimicked angrily. “How can that not bother you? He’s my best friend! He’s our best friend!”

Jaeger sighed. “Eren--you have to understand. It was a long time ago. I know it hurts to hear that, but it’s the truth. It hurt me just as much as it would have hurt you, but he wasn’t the only one who died that day. He wasn’t the only one we lost.”

“How did you ever forgive him?” Eren asked, more quietly.

“Huh?”

“Levi. How could you forgive him, for picking Erwin instead of Armin? He--” and Eren paused. He’d never said it out loud, could hardly admit it to himself. Himself. Ha. “He was going to. He didn’t, but he was going to, and I still can’t forgive him.” Eren looked up, and to his surprise--he had thought of course Jaeger would understand--Jaeger was looking back not with compassion, but...almost with anger.

“You should be grateful he did choose to save him,” was all Jaeger said. 

“I am, but--”

Jaeger turned away, adjusting the already perfect tack on his horse, and Eren felt his fury rise up again. 

This fucking guy! This asshole was _nothing_ like him! Ugh, so much for opening up to the one person who should have been able to understand!

 _He lost Armin, and you didn’t,_ a more mature inner voice said. _You don’t know what he feels. Maybe he misses Armin more than he can admit to you; maybe he hasn’t learned to forgive Levi either._ But that didn’t feel like the truth to Eren, though what the truth was he couldn’t have guessed.

The others started turning up then, all of them staring long and hard at Jaeger, as if they were surprised to see he hadn't evaporated. It was clear their conversation was over. Red-faced and chagrined Eren mounted up and fell to the back of the group. _At least when we see Levi again he’ll put him in his place,_ Eren thought, vengefully glaring at the back of Jaeger’s head. He had no doubt that Levi wouldn’t stand for Jaeger’s arrogance and high-handedness. For the first time he started to look at their reunion with the Captain with anticipation instead of dread.


	2. Chapter 2

The two days it took them to arrive at the training camp were the longest of Eren’s life.

Jaeger was insufferable. It wasn’t only that he was better looking, more confident, wittier, charismatic, and taller (all of those things and _more_ ). No, the worst part was _the rest of the squad liked him_. Eren had told himself that Jean at least would reliably hate him--but, probably out of sheer perversity, Jean seemed to like him too. He’d always had a healthy respect for the chain of command; maybe that was it. Or maybe he was just really invested in pissing Eren off. 

Jean thought it was hysterical when Jaeger told Eren off, for example. He had no problem telling _any_ of them off. But you would think you’d get a pass from _yourself._

And Jaeger seemed totally aware of and at ease with the effect he had on people. He flirted with _everyone_. Whenever they passed other travelers on the road Jaeger would always talk to them--he was friendly, he was _interested,_ he _flattered._ Eren would sit mutely behind him, gnashing his teeth in rage while he worked his magic, and Jaeger would usually return to them with some gift of food his new friends had foisted upon him.

This endeared him to the others, particularly Sasha. Not to Eren. Every time Jaeger showed off another skill it only seemed to highlight his own deficiencies. 

He didn’t know who Jaeger was, but he wasn’t _him_. He was as sure of that as anything.

When they finally arrived, late in the afternoon on the second day after setting out, Levi was waiting for them. As if he’d known, though he couldn’t have. He was standing on the boundary of the camp, his hair and cape blowing free in the wind.

Eren wondered what had brought him out here and then he realized, feeling stupid. Of course they would have look-outs; someone must have seen them in the distance and alerted him. 

He saw the moment Levi realized there were two of them. His eyes flickered back and forth--from Jaeger in the front, over to Eren riding behind and to the side. And then they settled back on Jaeger.

When they were a little distance away Jaeger stopped and dismounted to approach Levi on foot. He gave Jean the reins of his horse to hold and walked forward.

The others held back, waiting, and Eren was angry again. _He_ wasn’t their commander anymore, Levi was, and Levi hadn’t said for them to hold back. He was about to push himself forward when he noticed something. 

Jaeger was standing too close; Levi had started to tense up, unconsciously--Eren smiled and leaned back, content to wait now. _Finally._ With any luck Jaeger would say or do something that would get him punched in his stupid _face._

Jaeger leaned forward to embrace Levi. Eren saw him whisper something in Levi’s ear. That was _way_ too far, and Eren balled his fist up, his nails digging into the palm of his hand.

Levi was stiff for a moment--and then all at once he relaxed, one arm going around Jaeger’s back, the other around his neck. His fingers tightened there, pulling him in hard.

Eren stared at them in open-mouthed disbelief. He felt like someone had punched him.

After too long--much, much too long--they parted and Levi turned to face them. “Dinner’s in an hour,” he said. “Go and get cleaned up. The staff sergeant will assign you quarters.”

That was it. The two of them turned and left.

“...Huh.” Mikasa said. Surreptitiously she glanced at Eren.

“Yeah,” Jean said. “He didn’t seem as...surprised...as I would have guessed…”

“Maybe he figured there was only one explanation?” Armin said. “So no matter how weird it was, it had to be the right one.”

They took the horses to the stables, beginning to strip off their saddles and brush them down.

They were almost finished when Jean drifted by Eren, smiling. “I guess the Captain likes him better, too,” he said under his breath.

It wasn’t a very witty insult, by Jean’s standards, but Eren had looked so downtrodden he’d been unable to resist opening his mouth. The next moment he was lying on his back in the mucky stable dirt, and Eren was punching that mouth as hard as he could.

“Eren!” he heard Mikasa scream; it took both Armin and Mikasa to pull him off.

“You _bastard,”_ Jean said, spitting blood into the dirt. “I lost a tooth! I don’t grow them back like you do, asshole!”

“You want to lose another one?” Eren demanded, jerking against the hold Mikasa and Armin had on him.

“Both of you, that’s enough!” Mikasa said harshly, and she threw Eren to the ground.

He landed with an _'oof',_ rolling painfully to his side.

“Both of us? He hit me! I’m the victim here.”

“You shouldn’t have said anything,” she said reproachfully. There was something more in her eyes, and Jean, despite his indignation had to look away. Yeah, okay. There was such a thing as not kicking a guy when he was down. And that had been a much lower blow than he’d intended. 

He spat more blood onto the ground, then he stood up. “Sorry,” he said.

“Sorry!” Eren repeated, and he reached to grab for one of Jean’s ankles. Mikasa stepped on his hand, and he screamed in pain.

“You guys go ahead,” she said darkly. “Eren and I will finish up here.”

 

 

 

 

Levi sat across from the older Eren, the teapot in between them on the small table. Jaeger, he was supposed to call him, but looking at him all he could see was Eren.

Older Eren certainly, but Eren just the same. Even down to the way he held his mug, and the way he brushed the hair from his eyes.

“This temple,” Levi said. “How far is it?”

“Going straight there, I think it should only be a few days’ journey outside the Walls.”

“And you’re sure you can keep the Titans off of us?” Levi asked skeptically. “What you’re proposing is incredibly dangerous.”

“Hanji approved the plan.”

“I know. I read the letter you gave me. But she approved it based on _your_ word, so I’m asking you.”

“Yes,” Eren said. He was looking straight back into his eyes. “I’ll take care of them.”

Levi leaned back. “How did you find them?” he asked curiously, changing the subject.

Eren’s expressive face changed immediately. “Ugh,” he said. “They’re so _young_. I don’t know how you _put up_ with us all.” He paused, then smiled. “Still putting up with them, I guess.”

Levi smiled back.

“Eren hates me,” he confided.

Levi laughed then. “Have you been making yourself disagreeable?”

“I don’t know,” Jaeger said, laughing back. “I suppose so. We’re always much harder on ourselves, I guess. I want to shake him, and tell him what a stupid, spoiled child he is…”

“That isn’t fair. He’s lost a great deal.” Levi’s mild tone belied the words.

“Compared to what he could have lost,” Jaeger said softly, and something flickered across Levi’s face, too quick to read.

“That’s the dinner bell, isn’t it?” Jaeger asked after a moment.

“Yes,” Levi said. “I suppose we should go and join them.”

“You don’t seem shocked,” Jaeger said as they walked out of Levi’s room and crossed the yard to the main building.

“Did you expect me to be?”

“No,” Jaeger said smiling, and once again though he hadn’t intended to Levi found himself smiling back.

 

 

 

 

Levi tsk’d when he saw Jean’s face, and looked over to find Eren mutinously stabbing his potatoes. He didn’t comment further. Mikasa was sitting next to Eren wearing her put-upon expression; it was going to be a tense meal.

They all sat together at the same table. Curious new recruits were staring over at them, but hardly anyone seemed to have noticed the resemblance between Eren and Jaeger. Though the fact that Eren was keeping his head down furiously, while Jaeger sat up straight and tall and agreeable, might have had something to do with that.

Armin spent the meal glancing sidelong between Jaeger and Levi and Eren. Certain things were becoming clear…he looked over at Mikasa to see if _she’d_ noticed, and saw from her depressed expression that she’d probably realized a long time ago. 

After dinner the others all wanted to stay and socialize with the new recruits. They’d all been desperately starved for company rattling around in that horrible empty building in the capital; Jean and Connie and Sasha quickly sat down to a game of cards.

Which left the other three, because when Eren turned around he saw that Jaeger and the Captain had already left the mess. “You two should stay,” he said, after a moment. “I’m just going to turn in early.”

“No,” Mikasa said, quiet and firm. “You’re going to stay here and talk to people if it kills you.”

Eren looked startled for a moment--then he laughed. Armin shot Mikasa a relieved look, and then he steered Eren over to another table, where another card game was starting and there were a few empty seats left.

 

 

 

 

Jaeger had followed Levi back to his room casually, the same way Hanji might have done.

Talking to him was strange. Strange because of how strange it _wasn’t_. Jaeger knew him. And for Levi...it was like seeing an old friend again, after years of being apart. It shouldn’t have been, he told himself as he assembled the things for tea. It _should_ have been strange. This man was Eren, but wasn’t, this man knew him, but didn’t. And yet. And yet.

Before he could set the water to boil Jaeger’s hands were on him. He’d come to stand silently behind Levi, his big hands resting on Levi’s wrists.

 _Oh,_ Levi thought. Somehow, in spite of everything, he was surprised. 

“You can let me,” Jaeger said. His voice was silky and sweet and full of promise. “I know what you like.”

His hands, travelling over Levi’s body, were making that abundantly clear.

“You’re with him,” Levi whispered. “Not me.” He didn't poach. Not even from himself.

He felt Eren--Jaeger-- _Eren,_ his mind said firmly--smile against his ear.

“You knew?”

“From the first,” Levi agreed. “The way you looked at me…”

“You are him,” Eren said gently, unraveling him, “but you’re alone. You need somebody to take care of you, even if it’s just for now. I can see what a wreck you are, even if no one else can. You can put it down.”

He knew he ought to say no. He knew he ought to push this other Eren away. He stayed frozen, as Eren kissed his neck and ran his hands down over his chest and stomach. That seductive promise of, “just for now,” that was balm to his guilty soul. 

He turned his head to the side and found Eren's mouth with his own, and shuddered. It was the heart-stopping joy of kissing a new lover married with the experienced hand of an old one. Levi was living this for the first time, but Eren had been telling the truth; he knew what Levi liked...what he needed.

And Levi, who never trusted easily, found himself trusting this stranger with a familiar face. It helped that Eren’s hands were sure and unhesitating, that they found their way to parts of his body that were suddenly magically receptive, in ways he’d never before experienced.

At no point did he think that Eren had learned this with him, that Eren had surely been taught some of this by him. He was too overwhelmed, too lost in letting go to think of anything. Even that he would surely regret this later.

Eren unbuttoned his shirt, and pushed him down to the bed.

 

 

 

 

“We’re not doing this again,” Levi said the next morning. The sun was coming in through the window, and Eren was still wrapped behind him, where he’d been all night. He was braced for argument.

But Eren just smiled. “Whatever you want,” he said sweetly.

“You’re a good person,” Levi said quietly, as if he were admitting a secret. Eren’s smile got wider. He picked up Levi’s hand to kiss the inside of his wrist.

“It’s not a chore to be with you,” he told him.

Because he’d said yes, Levi let him do it. He probably would have let him do more. But Eren--Jaeger, now, he told himself--was climbing out of the bed to get dressed, obedient to orders.

Levi didn’t watch. 

“I’ll go and get the others ready,” Jaeger said. “Can I ask you something?”

“All right,” Levi said, after a pause. 

“What do you want me to call you? I mean, in front of them--are we colleagues, or--”

“Oh,” Levi said with distaste, sitting up. “No. Colleagues. I can’t take you ‘sir’-ing me in front of everyone.”

Jaeger laughed. “All right,” he said, agreeably, but there was a wicked glint in his eye.

“Anyway. You’re supposed to be a squad leader, aren’t you?”

“Supposed to be,” Jaeger agreed. “I’ll see you in the yard then...Levi.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't stop, won't stop.
> 
> Our story so far, as summarized by the amazing Tragicomulco:
> 
>  
> 
> _Jaeger being like "whatever eren's angst. I'm gonna carpe diem that sweet corporal ass", and Eren being all "wtf how can you be jealous of yourself?"._

Eren was in a better mood the next morning. They had stayed up late the night before, talking and playing cards with the new recruits. While it was _bizarre_ to be considered a veteran it was also a little bit gratifying. Particularly for Eren--for the first time since Jaeger had appeared he wasn’t being compared to him.

The new soldiers didn’t know him at all, only what they’d heard, and once they had gotten past their initial reserve they’d had plenty of questions for him.

It occurred to him later, walking back to guest quarters he was sharing with the other boys, that the new recruits had been trying to make a _good impression_ on him. The thought was so shocking that he stopped in his tracks and Armin stumbled right into him. They had walked back without a lantern, just the faint moonlight and the distant lights still on in the camp to guide them.

“Hey!” Armin said, playfully grabbing him around the neck. “What’s your problem?”

“Hey,” he laughed, pulling free. “Nothing. I was just thinking, it’s weird we’re the veterans now.”

“Yeah…”

“They think we’re older than we are,” Eren said, thinking back on the new soldiers' wide-eyed awe as he and the others had recounted stories about the battles they'd already survived.

Armin sighed. “Well, we’re the only ones left.”

“Yeah...I hate it,” Eren admitted.

“Me too,” Armin whispered.

It was as if the darkness made these confidences easier to share. It had crept in close and intimate around them. Only a few lights were still on in any of the buildings, and they had lost Jean and Connie up ahead, their laughing voices growing fainter as Eren and Armin had slowed their pace.

“Do you think we could have done anything differently?” Eren asked quietly.

“No,” Armin said immediately.

“Really?” Eren asked.

“Everything that happened...we did the best we could with what we had. We were all trying as hard as we could to win. _Everyone_ was.”

Eren had nodded, more in acknowledgment than agreement, and Armin slung an arm around him as they walked the rest of the way to the bunkhouse in silence.

This morning Jaeger had come early to make sure they were all up and getting ready, and then he’d disappeared to check on the girls. 

Levi was waiting for them when they gathered at the boundary gate. He was dressed for travelling, and he nodded to them all as they arrived.

“Ready?” he asked. 

“Yes, sir,” they answered.

It was obvious then to Eren that they were heading for Shinganshina. His hands seized up on the reins as he realized how little he wanted to see the place again. Would they go back to Trost first? Maybe, but it seemed unlikely. There were closer places to exit the wall, even if that put them further away from Shinganshina. When they’d discussed it among themselves Armin had intimated that Jaeger probably had more power over the coordinate than Eren did--meaning that he could keep them safe as they traveled through Titan territory.

“Hey,” Jaeger said. Eren was riding at the back again, and Jaeger had dropped back beside him. Eren looked at him crossly. “You all right?”

“Of course,” Eren said, giving him a sour look. Jaeger grinned back.

“You’re thinking about going back there, right? I am, too. I think about it every time.”

“Does it get easier?” Eren asked, after a brief internal struggle.

“No,” Jaeger said with bald honesty.

They rode along in silence for a few minutes.

“I want you to think about something,” Jaeger said. 

“Huh?”

“Inside you, can you see the place where you tap into the power that controls the Titans?”

Eren frowned. “No. Hanji’s asked me that before--I don’t know how I do it. It’s like moving my arm, or my leg. I can’t explain it.”

“Okay, well pretend then. Pretend inside you there’s something--a place, or an object, whatever you want--where that power lives.”

“Pretend?” Eren said skeptically.

“Yeah, pretend.”

“Okay…”

“Now describe it to me.”

“This is stupid,” Eren protested.

“It’s not stupid,” Jaeger said mildly. “If we make it to the temple and I get home you guys are going to have to get back here somehow, you do realize that?”

Eren gave him a startled look; no, he hadn’t realized!

“Why did Hanji agree to this?” he moaned under his breath.

“Because she trusts us,” Jaeger said, giving him that easy, confident smile. “Now: describe it to me.”

 

 

 

 

Armin had noticed as soon as Jaeger had dropped to the back of the group to ride beside Eren. To his surprise, he’d stayed back there; the two of them had even fallen a little behind everyone else. Levi rode up at the front.

“Armin,” Levi said at some point, and Armin snapped his head forward to attention, quickening his pace so that he was closer to Levi.

“Um, yes, sir?”

“Don’t worry about them,” Levi said. He gave Armin a look then that made him squirm; it was part reassurance, but part reproach too. As if he knew everything that Armin was thinking.

“Yes, sir,” he mumbled, falling back. 

When they stopped for lunch Armin had a chance to talk to Eren alone for a minute. They were filling their canteens in the stream, and Eren had lingered after the others had gone back up the bank. Armin stayed with him. Eren was frowning to himself; Armin was pretty sure he’d forgotten all about the canteen--it was filled and overflowing now, and Eren still had his hand in the water, holding it under.

“Hey,” Armin said.

“Hmm?” Eren said absently.

Armin plopped down on a flat rock beside him. “What was Jaeger talking to you about all morning?”

“Oh,” Eren said. He frowned more deeply, noticing the canteen at last and he pulled it up and capped it. He sat down beside Armin.

“He was trying to teach me how to use the coordinate,” Eren said--as if this were nothing important.

Armin had to take a moment to compose himself before speaking. “Oh?” he said carefully. “How? Did it work?”

“Mostly just…explaining how to think about things,” Eren said absently. “It’s hard. I’ve never thought about things as different parts before--it’s all been just one big muddle I guess.” He sighed, turning the canteen over and over in his hands. 

“Is it working?”

“I don’t know,” Eren said, sounding frustrated. “I mean, it’s not like there’s Titans around so I could check. But I feel--I almost feel like maybe he’s right.”

“So...that’s good, right?”

“Yeah, but--”

“What?”

“I should have figured it out myself,” Eren complained. “The way he says things, it’s so _simple_. Like I could have been doing these things already, but.” He sighed. “I feel like I’ve been using one of the flare guns to start fires with.”

Armin laughed. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s this complicated piece of machinery, right? With gears and chemicals inside, to make it work. And you could start a fire with it, probably, but it would be really stupid and inefficient,” Eren said morosely. “And then when you’re done you can’t figure out how to reload it, so--I don’t know, you just use it as a shovel or something.”

Armin laughed harder, but Eren leaned forward on his thighs and sighed, and he stopped abruptly.

“Is he making you feel stupid?”

“No! He’s--being nice, finally,” Eren grudgingly admitted. “He’s really patient. It’s just what I said-- _I_ should have figured this out, on my own. It’s been almost two years since the first time I transformed, and I haven’t made any progress…”

“Eren, that’s not true.”

“Fine, not _real_ progress,” Eren muttered. “That time I controlled all the Titans to save Mikasa--I’ve never been able to do it again. If I’d done it at Shinganshina people would still be alive.”

“Boys,” someone called from the top of the bank. It was Jaeger. “Come up and eat, we’re going to head out soon.” He turned and walked back.

Armin looked over at Eren, expecting to see resentment and annoyance, but to his surprise Eren was already on his feet. His expression was still absent, turned inwards. He began slogging up the side of the bank, and Armin hurried to keep up beside him.

 

 

 

 

After he’d eaten he came to sit by Jaeger--and by extension Levi. He shot a quick look at Levi before speaking, but Levi was looking politely off into the distance.

“Can we try again?” he muttered to Jaeger.

“Sure,” Jaeger said, getting to his feet and dusting himself off. “Everybody pack up,” he called out to the group, "we're leaving in five."

Eren glanced again at Levi, but he seemed not to mind Jaeger taking charge like this. Thinking about it, when he’d been part of Levi’s old squad Levi had often left little mundane tasks like that to the others to carry out.

He glanced back at Jaeger. The way he’d shifted from Squad Leader to Second-in-Command had been easy. He wasn’t showing off or doing it as a point to be irritating. It came naturally to him.

If Jaeger had been in Levi’s Squad for a while, before becoming a Squad Leader himself, then Eren supposed it might. 

When they were back on horseback he said, “He likes you.”

“Hmm?”

“Levi.”

Jaeger quirked a smile at him. “You do realize that by extension that means he likes you, right?”

“It’s different,” Eren said doggedly. “He took to you right away. He doesn’t do that with people.”

Jaeger rolled his eyes, just a little bit. “He already knows me, Eren, because he knows _you,”_

“We’re not the same,” Eren interjected, and Jaeger carried on over him, 

“And if you’d known him as long as I have it wouldn’t be so hard for you to figure him out either,” Jaeger finished drily. “The mistake most people make with him is thinking he’s more complicated than he is. Now. Describe it for me.”

Eren did, but part of him was preoccupied with this new idea. He wasn’t sure what to do with it. He wasn’t even sure how he _felt_ about it.

But. What he’d seen between them had been trust and easy camaraderie. It was easy to understand why Jaeger might feel that way--he _was_ used to Levi. But for Levi to trust Jaeger that meant…

It had to mean, on some level, that Levi trusted _him_ didn’t it?

He looked forward at the Captain’s back, riding at the head of their formation. 

 

 

 

 

Castle Zorah was where Levi and Eren’s squads were based. It was smaller than most of the SC bases, and that was part of the reason why Levi had chosen it.

His office overlooked the common area, and most of the time he kept his door open. Levi had lived through silence and noise, and on the whole he had found that he preferred noise.

Eren’s squad was out there now, arguing and rattling around billiard balls. They were always quiet to start with, leery of his open door, but after a while they’d forget he was there. Even if he had wanted to get up and close the door for quiet he almost never did because of the way it made them scatter. Eren had convinced them that he was something between a bogeyman and a demigod, much to his annoyance. 

They were young--the oldest was just seventeen--high-spirited, and obnoxious enough that his own squad rigidly avoided the common area when they were occupying it. 

Eren had only taken command recently, a full year after Jean and two after Mikasa, and he was as proud of them as any new father. Levi knew that a not-insignificant part of Hanji’s hesitation had been Eren’s tendency to flirt with anything that moved. It was charming in an attractive twenty-four-year-old; less so in someone charged with a half-dozen impressionable teenagers.

But as a squad leader he was beyond reproach; he did so well that Hanji had started to regret not promoting him sooner.

“Um, sir?” 

Levi looked up. Livia, a dark-haired girl of sixteen was standing in the doorway, watching him with anxious eyes. He realized then that the room beyond was silent, and had been for a minute or two.

Any time Eren was complimented on his squad he’d grin and say, “I learned from the best.” But part of his leadership style was telling the trainees (totally untrue) tales of Levi’s ferocity. He frequently used Levi as a threat to secure their obedience. They hadn’t yet learned not to be terrified of him, to his mingled amusement and irritation.

“What is it, Livia?” he asked.

“It’s Squad Leader Eren, sir...Hanji lost him!”


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

 

 

“It’s no good! I can’t--”

“Here, try this.” Jaeger’s voice was kind and gentle and patient. “Don’t try to focus on it so hard. Try to look at the space around it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Uh, guys? Any time you wanna finish up now would be great!” Jean’s voice called from behind them. The rest of the squad was bunched up on the hillside above, surrounded by Titans. They were looking at the humans with puzzled expressions, as if they couldn’t quite remember what had brought them up here.

Jaeger ignored him. “Describe it to me.”

Eren sighed. “A white column of light, in the middle of my body.”

“Okay--what’s the space around it look like?”

“Uh...I don’t know, you’ve never asked me that.”

“Well, tell me now.”

Eren thought for a minute. “Red--or pink. Dark. Like how I imagine the inside of my body would look--I guess.”

“Now, see the squad, surrounded by Titans.”

“Okay--”

“And imagine troop formation when we’re in Titan territory. See the formation, and the area around it.”

“Okay.” Eren said. His eyes were closed.

“Now lay those three pictures on top of each other. You see how they’re the same?”

“Uh-huh,” Eren said. 

“You just need to keep them separate--keep the formation safely moving through Titan territory, keep the squad safe on the hill from the Titans, keep the column apart from the rest of you.”

“But the column is the easy part. It’s already separate.”

“So are the others,” Jaeger said with gentle persuasion. “They want to be separate too.” 

“Okay…” Eren said. 

Jaeger turned and looked up at the hill. He let go. And then he smiled.

After a minute, Eren said, “How long am I supposed to keep doing this?”

“Just keep it up,” Jaeger said encouragingly. 

“Okay,” he said, after another little while. “Open your eyes, but keep the pictures in your mind.”

Eren opened his eyes. The squad was still on the hill, blades drawn, warily eyeing the docile Titans surrounding them. 

“When are you going to have me try?” he asked.

“What do you think you’ve been doing for the last five minutes?” Jaeger asked.

“I--what?” Eren said. He looked from the hill to Jaeger. “That’s me, keeping them off them!”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not helping?!”

“No--all you.”

One of the Titans made an abortive lunge for Jean, who shrieked. Before anyone could react it had taken a step back, and was smiling once again.

“Did you do that on purpose?” Jaeger asked.

“No!”

Jaeger snorted. “All right. Let go now.”

“But--”

“It’s okay, I’ve got them,” Jaeger said, and he began walking up the hill. 

Carefully Eren let the pictures go in his mind--like slowly opening his hand and watching the wind take a kite. The Titans began to look around them, and then they lurched or ran off in various directions.

“It seems wrong just to let them go,” Levi observed.

“Killing them would be a waste of time right now. This is more efficient.” Jaeger had reached them, but Eren was just behind him, looking thoughtful. Jean gave him a dirty look, which he missed. 

As they mounted back up, Eren said, “What you said about the formation--”

“Mm.”

“Is it like--like when we send flares up to change course? You just--divert around them?”

“Yes,” Jaeger said. “But instead of you moving, _they’re_ moving. Does that make sense?”

“That’s the column, right? You keep them separate because they’re easy to keep separate…”

“Yes.”

“Because the idea is you don’t want them to notice us at all.”

“To start with, yes. That’s right.”

Eren sighed. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this on my own coming back.”

“You will. We’ll practice as we ride--just keep it lower, but it’s the same idea. You let the formation ‘picture’ rise to the top, instead of the squad.”

Eren gave him a startled look. “That’s how you do it?” he said. “You change out which one it is--oh. You’re going from the smallest focus to the largest…”

Jaeger grinned. They were riding out now, in tight formation, with Levi at the apex. Eren had epiphany written all over his face, and Jaeger kept quiet, allowing him to work it out.

“You can switch between them rapidly--right? Like going from keeping them all off you, to controlling an individual Titan.”

“Yes,” Jaeger said. “But don’t worry about that right now. Just focus on this. And--don’t focus too hard. Try to keep it running in the background.”

“Why?”

“Well--a few reasons. You don’t want to wear yourself out. And you don’t want to use the coordinate too much. It attracts attention.”

“You mean--from the other shifters? Can they sense it?”

“Possibly.”

Eren digested this. “Can you control all the Titans?”

“No. There’s a geographical limit, and an individual limit. The more there are the harder it is.”

“What’s the most you can control?” Eren asked eagerly.

Jaeger sighed. “I don’t know. And I hope I don’t find out.”

“Oh...right,” Eren said. Because if you did find out...it would mean you no longer had control over them. “How did you figure all this out, anyway?”

“Practice. Trial and error. And I had help.”

“Hanji, right?” Eren said.

Jaeger gave him a strained smile. “Here, there’s a group coming up on our right. Headed toward us--try to course correct, like we talked about. Only we’re staying straight, it’s everything else that’s moving…”

In the distance someone was watching. They noticed the way the Titans veered off course--almost politely stepping out of the humans’ way. They noticed that the humans stayed straight and true and untroubled, as if they hadn’t even noticed the threat, or as if it had just been part of the landscape. 

Then, at a distance, they began to follow.

 

 

 

 

They reached Shinganshina at nightfall, which had been their plan. Since Jaeger and Eren could control the Titans during the day it meant that they could rest safely at night, and cover more ground when it was light out.

Everyone was quiet and somber as they approached. Remembering the last time they had been here. 

They made camp inside the town, in an empty square, away from the worst of the rubble and destruction. Levi was the first to disappear into his tent, but the others were quick to follow his example. It was a clear, starry night but no one was in the mood for chatting or stargazing. None of them wanted to be here. Eren and Armin were sharing a tent, along with Connie and Jean, and Sasha and Mikasa. Levi and Jaeger were the only two who had their own. Eren was about to follow Armin off to bed when he noticed that Jaeger hadn’t moved.

He was staring into the small fire they’d built, a blanket drawn over his shoulders. He looked pensive and troubled. Eren hesitated, then sat back down.

“Are you staying up?”

“Huh?” Jaeger started. Then he smiled quickly. “Oh--yeah. For a little while, I guess.”

“Are we safe here?” Eren asked. He’d assumed that they would be, until he’d seen Jaeger’s face. “Should we be take turns standing watch?”

“As far as I know we’re safe,” Jaeger said with a tight smile. “Don’t worry about it. Levi will be up again soon anyway.”

“Huh?”

Jaeger frowned at him. “He only sleeps like four hours a night. You know that, right? You’ve been living with him for like two years, how do you not know that?”

“He does?” Eren said, looking bewildered at Levi’s tent. He turned back to Jaeger. “Why?”

“Er…” Jaeger said. “I don’t know,” he said lamely. “He’s not a good sleeper, I guess.”

Eren gave him a dark look. “You know I’m not retarded. Since you _are_ me.”

“Look, forget I said anything.”

Eren snorted. “So what were you worrying about then? If we’re not in danger.”

Jaeger rubbed his face. “I just hope this works,” he admitted softly. “I hope I can get back to my own people. They probably think I’m dead, I mean--I just disappeared into thin air.”

“...oh.” Eren said quietly. He was pretty sure it was the first time he’d seen Jaeger display doubt about anything. It was disconcerting. 

Jaeger stared back into the fire--he seemed to have forgotten that Eren was there. Or was just ignoring him until he left. 

“I don’t like being here,” Eren admitted in an undertone. “I feel like--they’re all watching me. The ghosts of everyone who died here.”

“It never really did feel like a triumph, did it?” Jaeger said. He unfolded one arm from the blanket to lean back, looking around. “Hanji says if we ever do defeat the Titans and knock all the walls down, we should come back here and raze it all. Plant nothing but flowers, acres of them.”

Eren smiled. “I like that idea.”

Jaeger smiled back. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. It might change something.” He was only half-joking.

“I’ll act surprised when she tells me about it,” Eren said, and Jaeger laughed. He had a nice laugh: rich and warm. But Eren was disconcerted again. Did that mean _he_ had a nice laugh? Or just that he would, someday?

“Can I ask you something?” Jaeger asked quietly.

“Uh--yeah.”

“Why did Levi leave? Really?”

“You--mean for the training camp?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it wasn’t permanent. It was only temporary. We just don’t have any officers left…” Eren swallowed, and made himself continue. “Hanji had to stay in the capital to take care of everything, so Levi went. To see how far along the new recruits were...to see who would be good candidates for the Survey Corp.”

“So nothing happened?” Jaeger asked, still looking away into the fire.

“Happened?” Eren asked, bewildered. “Like what?”

“I don’t know...a disagreement, a quarrel. Anything like that.”

“No. I mean--not that I know of. I don’t think he would have fought with Hanji. They--” _They’re all they have left,_ he didn’t say, and continued, “They get along. Didn’t he leave where...you came from?”

“No,” Jaeger said, shaking his head.

“Oh. Well we already knew your world was different...Armin didn’t survive there.”

“That’s true,” Jaeger said quietly. “You should go to bed,” he added.

“What about you?”

“I’ll go to bed in a little bit,” Jaeger replied. Eren nodded, and got up to go.

But lying in his bedroll, the comforting sound of Armin’s slow even breaths beside him, he listened for a long time. He was waiting to hear Jaeger get up and go off to bed himself. He fell asleep before he heard anything.


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning Jaeger woke early, still feeling a bone-deep tiredness. He hadn’t slept well, and he closed his hand three or four times over the empty air beside him, as if tracing the shape of a body that wasn’t there. He rolled over onto his back and sighed. 

When he emerged from his tent a few minutes later Levi was awake already, sitting in front of a small grass fire.

“Thanks,” he said, taking the cup Levi offered and sitting down beside him.

“You didn’t sleep well?” Levi asked him.

“Better than you,” Jaeger replied drily. Levi had been up when Jaeger had finally gone to bed the night before, and Jaeger knew he hadn’t gone back to sleep in the interim.

“We’ll have to set up the pulleys and platforms to get the horses over the wall on the south side,” Levi said. “Should we get them up now? Or wait?”

“Let them sleep a little longer,” Jaeger said absently, rubbing his face. “The best place to stop tonight is a lake to the southwest, and it’s a hard day’s ride.”

“All the more reason to get an early start then, surely.”

“I think they’re better off resting now, but of course I defer to your judgment,” Jaeger said, with a trace of irony. He was tired enough that he’d responded without thinking, a little _why ask my opinion at all then if you’re just going to do what you want anyway?_ making it into his voice.

Levi didn’t respond and Jaeger looked over at him--it was the natural thing he would have done, to see what orders Levi wanted him to carry out.

Levi was smiling.

“What did I say?” Jaeger asked, puzzled.

“Nothing,” Levi said, which was patently untrue. 

Jaeger studied him. It was the expression his own Levi would have worn if he’d done something that had surprised but particularly pleased him, and he mulled it over.

“I didn’t think you’d be so good at keeping your word,” Levi said after a moment. This was changing the subject and Jaeger knew it but he let it pass.

“Why, was I supposed to fight you?” he asked, and he poked one of Levi’s boots with his own, quick but pointed. Crossing the perfect distance he’d maintained since waking up in Levi’s bed the day before. Experimental.

He was rewarded with another of those quick, amused glances. Pride? That was it, but something else too.

“Of course not,” Levi replied serenely. “You’re a model of self-control.” That was a dig, but an affectionate one.

 _He’s being playful,_ Jaeger realized. _And poor Eren, he’s never done that with him yet, has he?_

“I’ll tell my teacher you said so,” Jaeger replied, mirroring his serenity. “I’m sure he’ll be pleased.”

Levi raised his mug to his lips, but behind it Jaeger would have sworn that he was laughing.

 

 

 

 

All that morning as they got the squad ready, and all the horses and their equipment up and over the wall he thought about the brief pre-breakfast conversation with Levi.

He supposed he had lived through something like this once--but then again he wasn’t sure. Had there been one moment where Levi had recognized him as a colleague and a comrade instead of a charge? Or had it just happened so gradually over time that neither one of them had noticed?

He certainly didn’t remember the moment his own awe and fear of Levi had crossed over into (sometimes exasperated) affection. And living it, that was different than seeing it happen from the outside. Sometimes it seemed like the years went by so fast they never had a moment to stop and think about what they were doing. Here, he was the ultimate observer. He had intimate knowledge of these two people that, it was becoming increasingly clear, had very little knowledge of each other.

They were in true Titan territory now, though Eren and Jaeger were working to keep the Titans away. The squad were awestruck by the outside world. Jaeger heard them pointing things out to each other, talking in amazed excited voices. To his own slightly more jaundiced eye the territory they were passing through wasn’t much different from the one they were leaving. This close to the Wall they were the same trees, the same flowers, the same animals. But he could still remember what seeing it for the first time had been like. Their awe was no less than his had been. And Armin...of course, Armin had never gotten to see it at all.

He looked away, towards Levi and Eren instead. 

_There’s nothing between them._ For all his brotherly contempt of Eren it was an extraordinarily painful thought. The night they’d arrived at the training camp and he’d slept with Levi, he’d been acting on instinct. He’d wanted to _help._

He’d known from the start that if Levi had left them voluntarily something had to have been horribly wrong. Finding out how things had happened here, in this world...it hadn’t surprised him. 

Jaeger had never seen Levi so alone...so _young_ and in pain. It had shocked him, and he’d reached out unthinkingly, responding with compassion. He hadn’t meant to hurt or intrude on anything that might have lain between them--it had been obvious that nothing did. He’d taken it for granted that that would change later, but what if it didn’t?

Who was Levi, without Eren to persistently chip away at that stony exterior? Who was Eren, without that deep well of experience and compassion to draw from?

 _I felt something for him, even then,_ he told himself firmly. _Before now. I know he felt the same…_

The doubting voice replied, _What have you done since coming here besides drive them further apart?_

It was true he’d alienated Eren, it was true he’d even _enjoyed_ teasing him at first. Didn’t everyone want to go back and smack their younger self for doing something stupid? Could he really be blamed for that?

_You shouldn’t have interfered at all._

When Jaeger was gone that picture in Levi’s head would change. Memories always did. Would Eren ever be able to compete with a perfect memory? A stranger, swooping in to clutch him in the worst of his grief, disappearing before there was ever an opportunity for conflict to arise? 

This Eren couldn’t let go of his perceived betrayal anyway...and then Jaeger had appeared and all but confirmed that in another world Levi _had_ made a selfish choice instead of a right one.

Without consciously thinking about it Jaeger reached up a hand and pressed it to his heart. There was a tiny scar there that had never healed. 

_I wish I was at home,_ he thought painfully. Castle Zorah, his own squad, his own people, his own Levi. Even seeing Armin alive again wasn’t worth this pain and uncertainty. What if he _never_ saw them again?

And then there was this. He looked again at Levi and Eren, separate in their own private misery, both of them intimately familiar to him. He couldn’t ignore the thought that in his stumbling way he might have destroyed the thing he valued most.

 

 

 

 

“It’s getting late,” Levi said.

“We’re close,” Jaeger replied. “It’s a little further on.” Another hour, at least, but he didn’t say that. The kids were drooping, but they’d been surprisingly uncomplaining so far.

Jaeger touched the spot on his chest again.

“Are you all right? You keep doing that.”

“Oh,” Jaeger said, self-conscious. He dropped his hand to his side. “I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

“You have a scar there,” Levi said, eyeing him thoughtfully.

Of course he’d noticed. And hadn’t he just resolved not to encourage any further intimacy? It wasn’t fair to _them._

“Eren doesn’t,” Levi said mildly, when he didn’t respond. “If there’s something that can hurt him, in spite of his healing abilities, I’d like to know what it is.”

Jaeger glanced at him sideways. He didn’t think anyone was listening, but he lowered his voice anyway. “Someone,” he said. “There’s another Titan...one you haven’t encountered yet. Another female. She...hurt me. We don’t know why it didn’t heal. Levi...my Levi says it’s psychosomatic.” Jaeger smiled faintly.

Levi had frowned while Jaeger was speaking but now his expression lightened a little.

“Oh?”

“We don’t know how the coordinate works, but we know it can change reality. He says I used it on myself...that I could heal if I wanted to, but this is how I’m choosing to remember the sting of my defeat.” Jaeger kept his voice light, and Levi snorted.

“It still hurts you.”

“Sometimes.”

Sooner than he remembered they were coming upon the lake. It was misty in the sunset--they couldn’t have come upon it at a better time of day. He heard the others cooing and ahh-ing behind them, and he grinned.

They had quickened their pace, shaking off their exhaustion at the prospect of a meal and a good night’s sleep.

“It’s enormous,” Armin said quietly.

“But not as big as the ocean?” Mikasa teased him gently.

“No,” he said, returning her smile. “The ocean is so big you can’t see the end of it.”

In front of them Levi and Jaeger had stopped suddenly.

“What is it?” he asked, and then in the distance he saw a tiny figure--quietly fishing at the edge of the lake. The others had seen too; they’d gone silent.

He looked worriedly at Mikasa and Eren.

“The only people we know for sure live out here--”

“Are the intelligent Titans. There’s no way that can be a normal human.”

Jaeger had started forward again, and Levi tried to call him back. Then, shockingly, he flung himself to the ground and started _running_.

“What--” Armin whispered to himself. The sun had just disappeared beyond the treeline, and Armin squinted in the semi-darkness.

Levi was the first to realize; Armin heard him inhale sharply. Jaeger had reached the person’s side--he had dropped to his knees to embrace them.

Without speaking to the rest of them Levi urged his horse into a trot and struck out towards the distant figures. 

 

 

 

 

Jaeger didn’t remember jumping off his horse to run along the shore. All he knew was that Levi was here, sitting at the edge of the blue lake, appearing out of nowhere like the wise old sage in a fairy tale. A perfect string of silver fish was laid out beside him.

He fell on Levi, burying his face in his neck, and Levi reached a hand up to ruffle his hair but didn’t otherwise acknowledge him.

“Eren,” he said, after a moment. “Knock it off. You’re scaring the fish.”

Jaeger laughed wetly, pulling away to wipe his face. “How did you _get_ here?”

“Wait til your friends come up. I’m not repeating myself a thousand times.”

Jaeger leaned back on his knees and grinned, and Levi frowned at him. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“I didn’t know if I was ever going to see you again…”

Levi snorted. “As if there was any chance in hell I’d leave you to fend for yourself.” He pulled in his line and nudged Eren with his foot. “I mean it. You’re a squad leader now, aren’t you? Have a little dignity.”

“All right,” Jaeger said, looking down and radiating perfect happiness. Levi shook his head and got to his feet. 

The squad were riding up along the shore, hoofbeats rattling in the stones and sand. Everyone but the younger Levi stared at him with stunned amazement. _He_ was watching with a wariness that matched his own.

“Well,” he said, looking a long time at his younger double, and then turning his attention to the others. “Here we all are at last. To be honest, I was expecting you a few hours ago…”

 

 

 

 

He wouldn’t tell them anything until the fire was built up, though sticks and logs were waiting already. Jaeger had it bright and crackling long before it was full dark. The lake had turned a deep blue in the misty twilight and they worked quickly to get everything ready.

Sasha gutted the fish while the others set up the tents--all of them looking askance at the _two_ captains walking side by side along the lake, some distance from everyone else.

“You don’t think the rest of us are going to start showing up too, do you?” Jean muttered to Armin as he pegged his tent to the ground.

“I mean, I know I won’t at least,” Armin murmured back. Two Erens had been weird enough. But two _Levis?_

This new one was even more of a twin to Levi than Jaeger had been to Eren. His hair was cut a little different, shorter, but still pure jet black. They were the same size...and he seemed to have hardly aged at all. Still there was _something,_ unmistakeably different about him…

When they were all settled at last in front of the fire the older Levi started to speak. 

“Eren-”

“You can’t call me that,” he said. “I’m Jaeger, here. You’ll have to be the Captain, I suppose. We already have a Levi.” Jaeger delivered this speech with insolence perfectly disguised as innocence; it said something that he was surprised when they all laughed.

The older Levi--the Captain now--said drily, “Yes, thank you...very clever…” He looked around then at all of their faces in the firelight. Each one of them felt as if he were looking at them for the first time. Eren swallowed with a pang and looked away when he realized what it meant.

_In their world Armin's not the only one who died._

“After you disappeared Hanji sent a messenger to let us know what had happened. By the time I got to Mitras she’d tried everything she could think to get you back, but the portal closed right after you went through. We realized it had to have been something specific to you that made it function.”

“The coordinate,” Jaeger murmured.

“In the middle of the night someone--I forget who, now--had the idea that we should get one of your hairs, and see if that would activate it.”

“One of my _hairs?”_

“Yes,” the Captain said with the hint of a smile. “It worked. The portal turned on again--there was a bright light...Hanji wanted to go through herself but we talked her out of it.

“So it was the middle of the night here, too, when I came through at the headquarters in Mitras. I didn’t know what had happened or where you were. Eventually I got ahold of _this_ Hanji and I found out I’d missed you by a couple of days. I knew where you were heading and I thought if I came straight here I’d have a better chance of catching you than if I tried to follow. I knew this was the only landmark you were likely to remember.”

Jaeger grinned at him. “I’m not the one who got us lost before.”

“Anyway,” the Captain said, looking over the rest of them again. “We should only be a few days out from the temple.” He looked directly at Eren then, and Eren swallowed hard.

It was bad enough when Levi looked at him; it felt like this older version could see inside his _soul._

“Has he been teaching you to use the coordinate?” the Captain asked. “Will you be able to get them home safely?”

“Yes,” Eren answered immediately, hypnotized. Because the assumption was that he _could,_ and he felt that pride burn through him.

The Captain just nodded, as if this was the only answer he’d expected.

“How was my squad?” Jaeger asked.

“Fine when I left them. I’m sure they’ve burned the place down by now.”

The Captain looked at Levi across the fire. Eren had noticed the two of them avoided looking at each other, and still they kept doing it accidentally. Too much like looking into a mirror maybe. But the look that passed between them now was something different; a question, an answer.

“You should all get some sleep,” the Captain said aloud. “We still have a lot of travel ahead of us.”

 

 

 

 

Eren pushed through the rough canvas of the tent and collapsed facedown on his bedroll. “There are _two_ of them,” he muttered.

“I mean, I guess there were before, too," Armin said, crawling in behind him and kicking his boots off. "Just, they’re in the same universe now.”

“This is crazy.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think everyone survives,” Eren said quietly. “He was looking at everyone like…”

“Like he missed us.”

“Yeah,” Eren said. He swallowed, and he felt Armin grip his hand in the darkness. He squeezed back.

“Things could be different for us though. _You_ lived. You’re here.”

Armin held his friend’s hand tightly, but he didn’t know what to say. He knew Eren was trying to reassure them both, but long term survival for the Survey Corp was basically zero. If they didn’t defeat the Titans those were their odds. 

“It was reckless of him to come out here alone though,” Eren added disapprovingly, after a moment.

“The Captain?”

“Yes. All the way through Titan territory by himself!”

“It was his only option though...he didn’t know what he’d find when he went through the portal after Jaeger, and then he was afraid if he tried to follow us he’d lose our trail. He thought meeting us here was the best option. And finding the temple is their only way home.”

“Still reckless,” Eren muttered, and Armin smiled. Then Eren said, “What do you think they were talking about?”

“Levi and the Captain?”

“Yeah.” They had walked out along the lake alone for a few minutes before dinner, while the rest of them had been doing chores.

“He probably wanted to know what he could tell him. Or would tell him.”

“About us?”

“Yeah. I’m sure he thought the same thing we did...that not everyone survived.” And then--Armin wasn’t sure why he said it-- “He wants to protect us.”

“I know,” Eren muttered, sounding almost embarrassed. He rolled away from Armin, his back to him. “Good night.”


	6. Chapter 6

The Captain rode in front, Levi just after and a little to the right. The rest of them were spread out behind, riding in rough formation when the terrain would allow. It was getting rocky, and there were places they had to ride single file. When they got to a particularly steep ravine they dismounted to lead the horses, picking their way with care beside a drop of nearly fifty meters.

When they'd rearranged themselves on the other side Eren found himself walking behind Levi.

Levi had been quiet all morning. He had Eren’s _profound_ sympathy. The Captain was a much better doppelganger than Jaeger, but being faced with another version of himself was the most uncomfortable thing Eren had ever lived through. He could only imagine what Levi was feeling.

“Captain?” Jaeger might call him ‘Levi’, but _Eren_ wasn’t going to.

“Hmm?”

“Have you been this way before?”

“No,” Levi said after a moment. “When we were building the supply line it ran further to the south.”

“Oh.”

“Why?” Levi asked, glancing back at him.

Eren shrugged. “I just wondered.”

Quiet as they clambered over rocks and boulders, then Levi said, “Is it how you thought it would be?”

“No. Well, yes and no. It’s…” he struggled to find the words. “I thought it would feel different, but it doesn’t exactly. But it _is_ different. It’s both.”

“If you can control the coordinate that will change how we can proceed.”

“We can come back, you mean...explore more of the outside world…”

“Yes.”

Eren swallowed. “I want to. I mean, I have been controlling it. It’s getting easier. But I’m afraid without Jaeger…”

“He said you’ve been doing most of the work.”

“I just don’t want to let everyone down,” Eren said heavily.

Levi was quiet for a moment; Eren thought that would be the end of it. But then he said, “You’ve chosen well so far.”

Little words, to speak such tremendous meaning. He knew Levi wasn’t talking about one choice, but all of them. He hadn’t expected benediction. 

So why did it only make him feel more guilty? He struggled to find something, anything he could say to acknowledge what lay between them.

“Thank you,” he said at last, “for believing in us.”

Levi turned and looked at him. Eren thought he looked a little surprised. Before either of them could say any more Jaeger called for a halt. They’d reached a hilltop in between the ravine behind and a larger gorge ahead.

“We should have lunch here,” Jaeger said. “This is the only good spot we’ll get until we stop for the night.”

The hilltop was bare and rocky, with a few spindly blades of grass poking out from the stony soil. Most of them spread their capes on the hard ground to eat. The Captain walked on ahead, to the closest tall tree, and then he began to climb it.

“What’s he doing?” Eren asked Jaeger. 

“Scouting,” Jaeger said, poking Eren to make sure he’d gotten the joke, and Eren gave him an irritated look. It fell flat because Jean had heard and laughed, and Eren turned his sour face on him.

The Captain stayed up for a few minutes before climbing down and walking back to them.

“Did you see anything?”

“No. Have you two been keeping the Titans off of us?”

“There haven’t been any this morning.”

“That’s odd, don’t you think?” the Captain asked. He picked up his canteen but didn’t drink from it, tapping the sides with his fingers. “Can you feel any now?”

Jaeger closed his eyes. “No,” he said after a moment. “Should I--”

“No,” the Captain said absently. “Further ahead there’s a valley we have to cross. The only way around is too steep. You remember?”

“Yes.”

“If I were going to ambush us that’s where I’d do it.”

“We’ll be trapped at the bottom.”

“Yes.”

Levi broke in then. “You think someone’s following us?”

“The Beast is still alive here,” Jaeger said quietly. “And...Her.”

“We can’t rule it out,” the Captain said. 

“Could we go another way?” Armin asked. 

“Not without backtracking all the way we’ve come. And I’m not sure what’s beyond this. Another way might not be any safer.”

He looked directly at Levi then. “I think we’d better press on and take our chances,” he said, but it wasn’t a command. It was clear he would defer to Levi. 

It made Eren feel strange to watch; pleased on behalf of his own Captain, annoyed that Jaeger was so arrogant and high-handed when the older Levi was diplomatic and respectful. He wondered, uncomfortably, if that was a reflection on _him_.

“We can take the Beast among us,” Levi said. “What about this female Titan?”

Jaeger and the Captain exchanged glances. “Yes. I think so. We’ve defeated her before.”

“And if they’re together?”

“It will be more difficult, but yes--I wouldn’t bet against us.”

“Then it sounds as though we should press on,” Levi said.

 

 

 

 

They were on edge after that. No more pleasant remarks about the scenery. 

Jaeger started Eren practicing on something else.

“Close your eyes. Can you see Armin?”

“No…” Eren drawled. “Not with my eyes shut.”

“You should be able to sense the presence of other Titans,” Jaeger said. “Try to feel Armin and me, without looking.”

“No. I don’t feel anything…”

They worked at it all afternoon, with Eren growing increasingly frustrated that he couldn’t do what Jaeger asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jaeger said at last. “You know how to practice. Eventually you’ll get it.”

“How long did it take you?” Eren asked in frustration.

“To be honest I don’t remember,” Jaeger said. “Learning how to use the coordinate was different for me. I’m trying to explain it to you the way I think about it in my head...but I guess I’m not doing too good a job on this one. Sorry about that.”

Eren shrugged awkwardly, disarmed by the apology. “I don’t think it’s your fault,” he mumbled. “Do _you_ feel any Titans nearby?”

“No,” Jaeger sighed. “He’s probably right,” he added glumly. “He usually is.”

Eren grinned, then sobered up when he realized what that meant. “Are you worried?”

“Of course. I’m the reason you’re all out here.”

“But if we get answers it’ll be worth it.”

“I hope so,” Jaeger said.

 

 

 

 

Late that afternoon they reached the valley. The trees had gotten thicker and denser as they’d climbed, and the faint trail they’d been following ended abruptly.

“I see what you mean,” Levi said, looking at the steep cliffs on either side. The valley below was the only way forward, a deep, wide green bowl set before them. “Plenty of places to hide,” Levi observed. “How long do we wait here?”

“Eren?” the Captain said.

“There’s...” Jaeger said; Eren thought he sounded frustrated and puzzled. “But--”

They all saw it then; movement in the trees.

“Shit,” Jaeger said in resignation.

“You didn’t feel them?”

“It’s her. She’s here.”

The Titans were starting to appear, revealing themselves among the trees with wide, vacant grins.

“I can’t control them,” Eren said. He turned frantically to Jaeger. “Can you?”

“No,” Jaeger said, looking ill. “She’s here. She’s blocking us.”

_”How?”_

“I don’t know!”

“All of you wait here,” the older Levi said, his eyes on the Titans. “Stay back.”

He unclasped his cape and began tightening his harness and checking his equipment.

“Levi, maybe you shouldn’t--” Jaeger said, sounding worried.

“We have to lure her out,” the Captain said absently. “She won’t show herself otherwise, and we can’t let her get away.” When Jaeger didn’t respond he paused to look at him, and saw how dismayed he was. “You didn’t tell them,” he realized, surprised, his hands going still over the harness.

Jaeger looked down, upset and maybe even ashamed.

The others looked back and forth between the two of them in confusion.

The older Levi looked at Jaeger compassionately for a long moment. Then he turned to the others. “Stay back,” he said again. 

Then he ran down into the valley and transformed.

 

 

 

 

“He’s a Titan,” Eren said, in stunned disbelief. “How?” He stared up at Jaeger, still looking painfully downcast.

Jaeger gripped the reins of his horse in his hands. When he spoke his voice was low.

“He was wounded when we found him at Shinganshina. Erwin...Erwin was already dead. Levi told me to take the serum to Armin, but I didn’t. I gave it to him.”

Mikasa gasped, but the rest of them were silent and speechless. Jaeger turned away and guided his horse up the slope, back the way they had come; a moment later he was disappearing into the treeline.

“Eren, let him go,” Levi said gently. Eren stopped; he hadn’t even realized he’d been about to run after him.

He swallowed hard and clenched his hand into a tight fist. Then he turned back around to face the valley. He glanced at Armin and Mikasa and they looked back wide-eyed, sharing his confusion. He didn’t know what to say to them.

Levi’s Titan...it was fast. Fifteen meters, muscular with a wrestler’s build, but faster than any Titan he’d ever seen. It lunged straight at a larger Titan, taking it down; once he had it on the ground the fight was over in seconds. Then he moved on to the next one.

He was making quick work of all the Titans in the valley. Even when they tried to surround him he was too swift and agile for their numbers to overwhelm him. Eren wondered dully which of them could be the female Titan Jaeger and the Captain had spoken of.

But when she did appear there was no doubt who she was. Only three Titans were left when an explosion echoed out loud enough to rattle their teeth, and a funnel of steam rose up. 

She was dark-haired, and unlike Annie her skin was completely smooth. She was bigger than the Captain’s Titan, and Eren dug his fingers into his palm. The Captain was using the remaining Titans as a buffer between them. As they watched from up above he knocked one of them down and ripped out the back of its neck with one lightning-fast move.

Eren brought his fist up to his lips.

“Eren, no!” Levi snapped.

Eren glared at him. “It’s still three-on-one,” he said. “He’s getting tired.”

“Why do you think he told us to stay up here?” Levi demanded. “She may have heard about you, but she doesn’t know what you look like.”

Eren looked quickly between the Captain’s Titan and the female. “She thinks he’s me?” he said in sudden comprehension. “She thinks...he has the coordinate?”

“Yes,” Levi said quietly. “If you go down there she’ll know he doesn’t.”

“But--”

“Just wait,” Levi said.

But in the fight that ensued the remaining enemy Titans quickly gained the upper hand. This time when the Captain brought one down, another was close enough and quick enough to pin one of his hands. He broke free, and they circled one another.

But then two attacked him at once, and Eren couldn’t take it anymore. He ran forward, but Levi caught him. 

He crouched down, holding Eren in front of him as he struggled to move. “Let me go!”

They were going to kill the Captain, and Levi was just going to hold him here? The precious coordinate wasn’t _worth_ this! And where the _hell_ had Jaeger gone, why didn’t he care what happened to _his_ Captain?

Levi’s arms were like iron bands around him. “He’s holding back,” he said in Eren’s ear. “Trust him. Trust me.”

But it was hard to do that when the Captain’s Titan was pinned down now. The female made a spear in her hand--it looked like the crystal they’d seen before. She used it to cut the other Levi out of the Titan’s neck, and Eren screamed and struggled again. 

She was holding Levi helpless in one hand, the spear in the other. She was going to kill him.

“Look, Eren,” Levi said in his ear.

Jaeger had dived in silently to dispatch the other two Titans. He must have been hiding in the trees, waiting for this moment. They were both down in seconds, and before she had even noticed Jaeger had landed on her neck, and he was slicing through there too.

Her titan fell to the ground, and the Captain rolled free. Jaeger was holding the woman that had controlled the Titan.

“Her hands were full,” Levi said. “She couldn’t protect her neck.”

Eren pulled away and Levi let him go. He used the maneuver gear to fly up, shooting grapples along the trees in the valley to zip down to the others.

From the air, Eren could see Jaeger and the Captain both had a blade to her neck, and she was kneeling in front of them. The Captain was speaking, though Eren was too far away to hear what he said.

But she laughed, and the sound echoed out. It made Eren’s hair stand up. She lunged for one of the blades, and quicker than thought the two of them moved against her.

Her head dropped to the ground, rolling a few feet away where it stopped not far from where Eren finally landed. Looking at him in surprise. He took a deep breath, then walked towards the other two.

“Why didn’t you transform?” Eren demanded harshly.

Jaeger looked startled to see him. “As far as she knows we only have one Titan shifter,” he said. “If I changed she might have disappeared…”

“No,” Eren said. “That wasn’t the only reason.” He’d seen something that went beyond the perversity of Levi as a Titan, and Eren flying in on the maneuver gear to assist and rescue. He knew himself, and now he knew something about this other Eren too.

He heard someone coming down to land softly beside him. Without turning he knew that it was Levi.

“Whatever it is, he deserves to know the truth,” Levi said quietly.

Jaeger looked down. “You tell them" he said. He sounded utterly defeated. "I’m tired of talking.”

"All right," the older Levi said after a moment. He looked directly at Eren, and Eren forced himself not to look away. “The coordinate is dangerous,” he said. “The more you use it, or the older you get--we don’t really know which--the more dangerous it will be for you. It’s what we think happened to the old king...why he grew sickly. The last time Eren transformed he was ill for six months. We weren’t sure he’d recover. Hanji has forbidden him from using it again, except as a last resort.” The Captain spoke the words with a nonchalance that Eren knew he didn't feel and he swallowed hard, more worried about _them_ than he was for himself.

“That’s why you went outside the Walls, looking for the village where they come from,” he realized bleakly. “You hoped you’d find an answer. A cure.”

The Captain inclined his head; _yes._

“Did you tell Hanji? Our Hanji?” he said, looking past him to Jaeger.

“No. I hoped things could be different for you. That you could find a solution before we could. I thought if she knew she might forbid you from transforming, especially since you have Armin. But that wasn’t what I wanted...I knew it wasn’t what you’d want, either. And it could change so much...”

“You were right,” Eren said. “Thank you. I’m sorry.”

Jaeger looked uncomfortable. “Well, we’re not dead yet,” he said. “Let’s get moving, and try to keep it that way.”


	7. Chapter 7

It wasn’t comfortable. That first night Levi had walked out along the perimeter of the lake with his doppelganger, feeling an awkwardness that was totally novel. Every motion of his--the natural movement of his body, his gestures, the way he spoke--it was on display, in this life-size replica, who seemed oddly at ease considering the circumstances.

“What happens to them?”

“You want to know so you can protect them.”

“Yes.”

“I think the best way you can do that,” the other Levi said carefully, “is by not finding out.”

Levi stared out at the lake, unsurprised. He couldn’t even be resentful.

“You won’t tell me anything.”

“I’m sorry. I do think it’s for the best.”

Levi turned back. It was dark now, but he could see their silhouettes against the outline of the fire Jaeger had started. They didn’t talk about what lay between them; both of them knew. Levi had seen that this older man had sized them up in an instant. He didn’t resent that either; there was something oddly restful about being known and understood and...not resented in turn.

Just as he had understood Jaeger, so did this older Levi understand _him_.

So he said, “I don’t know if I can do it again.” Admitting it all, so simply that only he could understand. His agony, his despair, his hopelessness. His failure.

He hadn’t been Erwin’s lover, he had never had even the mildest romantic interest in him. But his relationship with Erwin had been as rich, as complex, as affectionate in its way as any marriage. It had been the most important relationship in his life, and three months on he was no closer to being whole.

“We all find our own path,” the other Levi said. Not absolution or encouragement, but in a way both. He touched Levi’s shoulder--and that, in itself, was a strange and telling gesture.

Later when he found out the truth--that Jaeger had chosen Levi, over Armin--it had all fallen into place. He could see how the two of them might have found solace in each other, even without a physical relationship. Grief was the great equalizer.

And looking at them together he felt--not jealous. _Envious._ A pain that both surprised and embarrassed him. He’d been brought so low he hadn’t known he could feel so much worse, and he felt childish and irritated with himself.

All the things he couldn’t have when he was young (and there had been so many)...he’d learned to mask his disappointment. Seeing them together brought him right back to being that boy, looking at something he wanted and knew he’d never have. He didn’t have any grudge towards them...and certainly not towards Eren. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was just the way things were.

He understood Eren. He knew that he was angry, confused, ashamed. That he believed (wrongly) that he had played more of a role in convincing Levi to make his own choice. That the guilt was eating him up now, because Levi wasn’t a good enough actor to hide the fact that he’d been half-killed by grief.

It was his job to tell Eren that it wasn’t his fault...to convince him that he wasn’t to blame, that Levi didn’t resent him. But his efforts (pathetic as they were) hadn’t amounted to much. He didn’t resent Eren. But he was broken, and his disconnect with the world was too obvious to hide from someone so observant.

It was easier to let Eren be angry at him than to try to fix things between them. He was realistic about his own mortality anyway...or he’d just stopped caring. Better to let the distance grow than to let his own death hurt the people he still cared about.

Seeing this other impossible future, dangled so tantalizingly close, was a fresh source of pain. He’d known he would regret the night he’d spent with Jaeger. He just hadn’t expected to regret it so soon.

When he woke up that morning (if he’d ever really slept at all) he’d slipped out of the tent early to walk along the shore, his back to the camp. He’d gone to bed before finding out whether they intended to share a tent. The Captain had treated everything with such delicacy that Levi doubted Eren had even realized yet, though that wouldn’t last long. 

You couldn’t see them and not see the perfect partnership, the trust, the understanding.

He’d thought he’d understood Jaeger, but he hadn’t really until he’d seen the Captain. He’d admired Jaeger, even felt a trace of pride that Eren might grow into another version of this man. 

And Eren...Eren would be a good man, but he wouldn’t be Jaeger. He didn’t regret that. He only regretted his own failure as a teacher. He hadn’t understood his own contributions to Eren’s character. The Captain was as close to perfect as you could get. So many things that Levi had wondered about or smiled at or been surprised by he now understood had been gently cultivated by this man, this version of himself who was so much more than he was.

When they’d reached the Titan-filled valley Levi had been as shocked as any of them to see the Captain transform. He’d understood then, the missing pieces filled in--how it had all happened. Shared grief hadn’t been the only thing that had brought them together.

He’d known that Jaeger wouldn’t stay back despite the Captain’s warning, and that the Captain hadn’t expected him to. He’d held Eren back with a fleeting sense of loss...seeing his natural and admirable impulse to step in and protect someone he’d come to care about in so short a time. He regretted more than anything that he couldn’t be that for Eren.

 

 

 

 

“How could you?” Eren asked. They were riding at the back of the column--Eren had maneuvered things that way so he could get Jaeger alone.

Jaeger sighed. “I can’t tell you what you want to know, Eren.”

“Armin’s our best friend. Levi even told you to save him.” Eren wasn’t speaking with anger, but miserable confusion, like a dog that didn’t know why it had been kicked.

“Fine,” Jaeger said under his breath. “Stop.”

“But--”

“It will be obvious to literally everyone what we’re doing,” Jaeger said. “He’ll keep them moving and let us catch up. Just stop for a minute.” Jaeger didn’t wait to see if Eren would follow; he slid off the back of his horse and walked a little ways away to a fallen tree. He sat down, stretching his long legs out in front of him.

Eren glanced forward, at the others shrinking into the distance ahead of him, and then he followed Jaeger warily.

“That’s not what happened,” Jaeger said. He unscrewed the top of his canteen and took a sip, then held it out to Eren who shook his head.

“What do you mean?”

“That’s the story I tell everyone but it’s not what happened. He doesn’t even remember.” Jaeger rubbed his face. He hadn’t shaved today or the day before, and there was short raspy stubble growing in. Eren thought it looked odd and out of place.

“Okay,” Eren said reasonably. “Then what did happen?”

“When I saw Armin was still alive I didn’t wait. I shot off towards the battlefield--that was the last place I’d seen Levi. I still had some gas left, so I wasn’t worried about getting there and back. 

“Mikasa saw me go, and she knew what I was going to do. She stayed with Armin. 

“And when I got to the Wall, it was like reality hit me all at once. Everyone was dead. Every last one of them.” Jaeger laughed darkly. “And you know what? I _still_ expected to see him.

“I was looking for Levi and I didn’t see him, because he was one of the bodies on the battlefield.”

Eren swallowed, and though he knew the outcome already he couldn’t do anything to stop the fear that squeezed his heart, as real as if he was living it himself. He could picture Jaeger, standing at the top of the Wall, looking in horror over the fields of the dead because _he’d_ seen that. He’d lived it too. The smell, the stench of blood and death, the bodies of the people who had been his friends...

“Then how did you find him?”

“I saw him. I recognized him, and I flew down. I had to run once I hit the ground. He wasn’t close to the Wall, and all the horses were dead. I want to tell you I was still thinking of Armin, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t even thinking about all the dead I passed, and the dying. Some of them were still alive, you know. I could have stopped, and comforted them, but I didn’t. I can’t tell you what it was like to see him there, just another broken body. 

“Up until that moment I didn’t think he could die. I still didn’t believe it, or I didn’t want to. I wanted it to be a mistake. 

“When I reached him he was holding the syringe. He pushed it at me. He didn’t speak--he couldn’t speak anymore. I didn’t tell him about Armin. I knew just from looking at him that he only had a few minutes left. And you know what I thought then?”

Mutely Eren shook his head.

 _“What the hell was he waiting for?_ He could have injected himself...how long was he lying there? Waiting. In agony. Because someone else needed it more. Because someone else always does. That’s what he thinks.

“So I didn’t ask him, or consult anyone. I didn’t even hesitate. I took it and I injected him. And if you could have been in that situation and not done the same…” Jaeger took a shuddering breath and shook his head. “Then I don’t think I can ever make you understand.” 

Jaeger got to his feet.

“But--why lie about it?” Eren asked, clearing his throat and looking carefully at the ground.

“Because when I got back Mikasa was still waiting by Armin’s body. He was dead...he had been for some time. She wanted to know what had happened, and I told her that. I knew she would blame me, and she did. I didn’t want her to blame him. I didn’t want her to think that he’d been in any way complicit, because he _hadn’t_ been. It was my choice.”

Jaeger was looking seriously at Eren, and Eren almost couldn’t look back at him. “It’s not that it was easy to let Armin die,” Jaeger said quietly. “It wasn’t. There’s not a day that’s gone by that I haven’t thought about him, that I haven’t borne the responsibility for his death. I’m glad you haven’t had to make that choice. It’s not an easy one to live with.

“But it didn’t feel like a choice at the time. I…” and Jaeger shook his head, momentarily at a loss. “I couldn’t take the serum and leave him there to die. I couldn’t. Not for anything. I’m not asking for your forgiveness, or his. Blame me if you like,” and there was nothing bitter or sarcastic about the way he said it, only bare honesty. “I didn’t tell you because I thought I could spare you that. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth.”

Eren nodded. He’d wanted answers...well, he’d gotten them. Jaeger reached out and squeezed his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and together they walked back to rejoin the others.

 

 

 

 

That night they stopped at a cave--or rather, a complex network of caves built into a cliffside overlooking the river valley below. The Captain and Jaeger had stayed there before; they said it had been dry and safe when they’d been there.

Sasha crept off with her bow to see if she could catch any small unwary animals while the others went to collect water and firewood. Jaeger sought Armin out alone.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it probably seems cowardly, not to have told you all the truth from the beginning. But I didn’t want to spoil things between you. I didn’t want any of you to be second-guessing each other because of something I did.”

Armin had expected this, and he smiled. “Eren,” he said, “You don’t need to apologize. You have nothing to be sorry for. I would have done the same thing.”

Jaeger stared at him doubtfully.

“You were with me when it happened, right?” Armin asked. He dumped the sticks he’d been collecting into Jaeger’s arms and then bent down for more.

“Yeah,” Jaeger said, following alongside him. “I...went to go find Levi when I realized you were still alive.” He paused then, for long enough that Armin wondered if he would continue. 

“But he was wounded too,” Armin said softly.

“I knew he was going to die,” Jaeger whispered, his voice pained. “He told me to take the serum back, but I couldn’t. So I injected him. I’m sorry.”

“Eren…” Armin shook his head. “You did the right thing.” His voice was warm and reassuring. “By the time you made it back I--that is to say, the other Armin--would have been dead. You would have lost both of us.”

“You can’t know that for sure.”

“I do, though,” Armin said thoughtfully. “The way things happened here, Levi came to _us_. He was wounded, but not seriously. I know how badly I was injured.” He shuddered involuntarily, remembering. “I know you wouldn’t have had time to get outside the Walls and back in time. You saved Levi’s life. You wouldn’t have been able to save mine.”

Jaeger gave him a sorrowful look, and Armin held his arms out. After a moment Jaeger stepped closer, and Armin clasped him tightly, the firewood trapped between them. 

“Who knows,” Armin mused. “Maybe by coming here you changed things for the better and saved my life--maybe you saved _all_ of us. I could tell, earlier, that something happened with that female Titan shifter that you killed.”

Jaeger didn’t answer this, but Armin hadn’t expected him to.

They let each other go. “Armin--”

“Eren, if you want to be forgiven, then I forgive you,” he said lightly. “But I would have done the same thing--I swear to you.”

Jaeger smiled wanly--not convinced but maybe, Armin thought, a little reassured.


	8. Chapter 8

They ate rabbits that Sasha and Connie had skinned, over a campfire Jean had built up outside the caves’ entrance. The Captain drew a map in the dirt on the ground while the last of the sunlight faded, showing how much further they still had to travel. 

After dinner Eren went inside, collapsing into a morose heap on his bedroll in the corner where they’d stashed their gear.

“Do you wanna play cards?” Armin asked. He’d followed Eren back. “They’re starting a game.”

“You don’t hate me, do you Armin?” Eren asked dolefully.

“Eren. Come on.”

Eren sighed and pressed his palms to his eyes. Armin bit his lip and leaned back against a stalagmite. This wasn’t his area of expertise, but he tried gamely to think of a solution anyway. He wondered if Eren had realized yet. The Captain wasn’t showy but it was obvious to anyone who knew them well--the rest of them had by silent consensus agreed not to discuss it. It was an awkward mess and they were scuttling around it nervously…

But Armin couldn’t help but think Captain Levi and Eren were like two ticking time bombs. It was only a matter of time before one--or both of them--went off. And he was uncomfortably aware that he was the other principal here.

From the moment he’d woken up and Eren had explained what had happened, he’d felt unworthy of the sacrifice. None of his friends’ assurances had convinced him that his life had been worth more than Commander Erwin’s. 

Mikasa and Eren had been much more upset about Jaeger’s revelation than he had. He...he’d only been relieved. To be free of the burden of guilt and heroism and expectations was something, even if it was only in another world.

“He’s not me,” Eren said quietly, and Armin wondered who it was he was trying to convince. He stretched his legs out in front of him. 

“He did the right thing,” Armin said, dispassionately but with quiet conviction.

 _“What?”_ Eren said, dropping his hands from his face to sit up and glower at him.

Armin stared back, unfazed. “He did the right thing. If he’d tried to take the serum back to the other Armin, Levi would have died. And the other Armin would have been dead before he made it back.”

Eren scowled. “He should have tried!”

“And left Levi to die?”

Eren said nothing, frowning and plucking at a loose thread on the hem of his shirt. “Do you wish we had let you die?” he asked quietly.

He was so serious--and it was such an un-Eren-like thing to say--that Armin was taken aback for a moment. “I think you should have saved Erwin,” he said honestly. “I didn’t want to die, but I was prepared to sacrifice myself, and...I agree with Hanji. I would have chosen Erwin. I’m not ungrateful...I’m not sorry to be alive. It was a difficult choice.”

“I guess it’s a lot for you to live up to,” Eren said quietly. 

“Eren...you know I’m not angry at you. I don’t blame you for anything.”

Eren shrugged; a ripple that moved through his whole body. “I know. I’m...just going to go walk around...clear my head.”

“All right,” Armin said, and he moved aside to let Eren pass, feeling uncomfortably like he’d made things worse.

 

 

 

 

Eren had gone outside to take a piss, and he was reluctant to go back in. He didn’t feel up to facing the others. And he couldn’t believe Armin was taking it so well! He didn’t know how to feel about...any of it. 

Staring at the cave entrance he gave in to a sudden impulse, and he started climbing up the outside, finding handholds on the rocky surface. After twenty minutes he was sweating and breathing hard, but he’d made it halfway to the top in the dark. He paused to catch his breath, feeling oddly satisfied. He was sitting on a three inch ledge, his legs dangling into the empty air below; the drop was ten or twelve meters down to the ground.

He heard voices and he jumped, almost falling off--he leaned back, his hands gripping the rock tightly and he looked around wildly. The last thing he needed was to be caught in the open like this, taking stupid risks and being reminded what an idiot he was. Further up he caught sight of something that might have been an opening, and he managed to turn himself around so his feet were on the ledge and he was hanging on to the rock. He had to stretch and jump a little, but he just made it and was able to clamber silently into the hole instead of falling to the ground below.

The rock sloped down and he wondered if it led back to the main cavern--Jaeger had said these caves all seemed to be connected. He could go back now.

He could still hear the voices. It was Jaeger and the Captain. He hadn’t seen them from his perch, so they’d been around the corner from him--maybe they’d found their own little exit from the cave.

He crouched where he was, hesitating. He could hear them as well as if they were standing beside him...it must have been the way sound travelled over the rock.

“So I think I might have screwed everything up,” Jaeger said.

“You don’t say,” Levi drawled.

Eren heard Jaeger sigh. He knew he ought to go back, but was it really eavesdropping if you were listening in on _yourself?_ Yeah, it probably was. But he was desperately curious--about them, about himself, about his future, and...his future with Levi? He wasn’t dumb enough to have missed the easy affection between Jaeger and the Captain, even if he couldn’t quite believe it.

Because okay, who wouldn’t be attracted to Levi? But he couldn’t see Levi looking at him as anything but a kid and a pain in the ass. So...so how had that...turned into whatever it was between them?

There was a noise then, that Eren could only imagine was Jaeger throwing himself into the Captain’s arms; the Captain snorted, and Eren tried unsuccessfully not to feel very, very bitter.

“I’m worried about them. Can’t we do anything?”

“Everyone has to find their own path, Eren.”

“But they’re us!”

 _“Including_ us.”

Eren couldn’t see them, but he could imagine Levi stroking Jaeger’s hair as he spoke. Jaeger looking up at him, seeking comfort and reassurance.

“Did you sleep with him?” the Captain asked, and Eren in his hiding spot froze in shock.

“Levi,” Jaeger said, after a short pregnant pause. “Would I do that?”

Eren balled up a fist, pressing it into the wall hard enough to bruise. He kept furiously silent but he wanted to _scream._ He’d never even _suspected_ this, and...and that fucking lying whoring version of himself was treating it like a _joke_ and this Levi--did he not even _care?_ It was unbelievable! One Levi wasn’t even enough for him, he thought he had rights to Eren’s Levi too!

Levi snorted again. “Yeah, I think you would.”

Jaeger sighed. “I’m sorry, if you mind. I didn’t think you would.”

“I don’t.”

“You--really?”

“Hanji always wants me to dress you down for flirting with everything that’s not nailed down, you know.”

“Really?” Jaeger burst out laughing. “I can’t imagine her saying that to you. Wait, she _likes_ it when I flirt with her!”

“Yeah, and why do you suppose your promotion was delayed so long?”

“No! Levi, not _really?”_ Jaeger moaned. “You should have told me!”

“I told you from the start I wasn’t going to cage you,” Levi answered calmly. “I’ve never minded. I know you’ve been faithful to me. And that’s...not something I ever asked you for.”

“Levi…” Jaeger, sounding embarrassed. “Who else would I want?”

“You’re young and you’re beautiful and you know it,” Levi replied easily, and Jaeger laughed, if a little sadly. “I know you’ve had offers.”

“But I don’t--you shouldn’t think it’s been difficult, I--and I never meant anything by flirting, if you want me to stop--”

“I don’t. It’s what I’m trying to tell you--doing an awful job, too. I love you as you are. You don’t need to change. You’ve been a gift, and I don’t know who I’d be without you. I knew from the moment I saw him--I lived through it, I know the pain he’s feeling. You couldn’t have looked at him and not wanted to comfort him, loving me the way you do.”

“You’re not mad, then?” Jaeger asked timidly.

“Of course not,” Levi said, “Isn’t that what I’ve been telling you? But they deserve to figure things out for themselves, Eren. They might not feel the way we do.”

Jaeger sighed. “I just hope I haven’t _ruined_ everything.”

“If anyone can understand your motivations it’s those two,” Levi replied drily, and Jaeger laughed again.

In the cave behind them Eren sobbed silently into his arms.

 

 

 

 

Levi was too unsettled to think of sleep. Jaeger and the Captain had disappeared after dinner, and the kids had been putting together a card game when he’d walked out. He’d wanted to explore more of the caves, ostensibly to know where the entrances and exits were, but really he’d just wanted to be moving.

It would be a relief when they got those two back where they belonged. Maybe then things would start to feel normal.

He was startled when someone crashed into him, knocking the lantern from his hands. Instinct told him it wasn’t a threat, and his hands came up to steady the other person in the darkness.

“Eren--hey.” Recognizing him by touch.

 _Perfect. Of course it was Levi._

He stared woodenly at the ground while Levi went to retrieve his light, hoping it wasn't obvious he'd been crying. 

“Are you all right?” Levi asked. 

“I just got lost coming back,” he mumbled. 

A sound echoed faintly out, exposing his lie. Jaeger laughing, somewhere nearby. They both flinched.

 _Fantastic,_ Levi thought resignedly, glancing at Eren and wondering what he might have heard. It was obvious that he was upset--he had to know now. 

They looked away from each other, neither of them knowing what to say. Both of them wishing they were someplace else.

“They're not us, you know,” Levi said after a pause.

“I know,” Eren snapped back, too harsh. But he had to get away before he started crying again.

Silently Levi stepped aside to let him pass, keeping his body at a polite distance that Eren found infuriating.

He was tempted to brush against him for that, but he either wasn't childish enough or wasn't foolish enough. He followed the main branch back, the way Levi had come. He heard the others talking after a while and he followed the sound back to the main cavern. He was furious. 

But not with Jaeger, for once. Or anybody else. Just himself.

He’d known that Levi had missed Erwin, he’d seen that Levi had been distant with them all (with _him_ ) since coming back from Shinganshina. 

He’d felt so _guilty,_ but angry too. He hadn’t wanted Erwin to die--why couldn’t Levi see that (instead of blaming him)...

Well. He’d finally had his ‘oh’ moment. As in _‘oh, actually the world doesn’t revolve around you, Eren Jaeger. Levi is upset because Erwin is dead and that actually has nothing to do with you. And Jaeger wasn’t trying to be nice to Levi to piss you off, he was doing it because you’re such a fucking dumbass you didn’t even realize how bad he was hurting.’_

But Jaeger did. Jaeger was so much better for Levi than he was, but Jaeger had his own Captain to go home with. Which just left Levi with the crappy second-rate version.

He’d noticed Levi visibly lighten in Jaeger’s presence those first few days, and in his anger and frustration it had been just another annoyance. Had he ever thought _why_ Levi had been so miserable in the first place? Had he ever thought about the significance of all Jaeger’s careful questions and statements?

No, of course not. He was too busy being a selfish dick to worry about anyone else.

And yes, okay, he'd had some nascent feelings for Levi. He'd cherished the small kindnesses these last few months. When he'd started to suspect there was something between Jaeger and the Captain he'd felt a skittish pleasure, and he'd eavesdropped, hoping to gain some insight into himself.

Well he had. And apparently it wasn't a foregone conclusion he'd end up with Levi. Levi hadn’t liked Jaeger because he was Eren, he'd liked him because he was a _good person._

Mikasa sat down beside him, offering him a mug.

“Thanks,” he muttered. 

“You okay?”

He shrugged indifferently. “Sure. Fine. Everyone hates me.”

“Eren…”

“Armin didn’t want to be saved. I think he likes Jaeger better for _not_ saving him.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“And Jaeger thinks I’m a dick. Because I am a dick.”

“You’re not a dick.”

He stared at her.

“Okay,” she said at last. “Maybe you’re a little bit of a dick.”

They both cracked up then, like siblings do even when the joke isn't that funny. Mikasa wanted to put her arm around him, but she didn’t quite dare. 

She’d known before they had that things were changing, and she’d mourned the loss of her little family even while they were still together. Eren had tried to pretend that things were the same after Shinganshina, but they weren’t the same people they’d been before going home. 

In a way Armin hadn’t forgiven them. In a way he never would.

Meeting Jaeger had been a shock, but a good one. She’d been as besotted by him as anyone--Eren, grown up and handsome and capable and responsible? That was all she’d ever wanted. But in a strange way it had made her sad too. Because if Eren could take care of himself…

Then what was _her_ job?

 _He needs you now,_ she told herself firmly, so she went about cheering her brother up. _But not for long,_ she added sadly. She’d known the boys were growing up and growing away from her...but she _hadn’t_ realized that she was a part of it, that she was changing too. 

That she needed more from life than just keeping Eren out of trouble.

She smiled. 

“What are you laughing about?”

She tilted her head towards the other side of the cavern, where Connie was keeping everyone entertained with dirty shadow puppets. 

“Oh,” Eren said, and he smiled too. 

She nudged him towards the others, because for now it was still her job. And they slipped in at the edge of the circle, all of them pretending for a few more hours that nothing had changed, and they were still the same people they’d always been.


	9. Chapter 9

“He seems mopier than usual today,” Jean said.

Armin groaned. They were sitting together in the sunshine outside the cave, waiting for the second pot of tea to boil. It was early morning, but everyone was up and (mostly) moving.

“Don’t start messing with him, please,” Armin begged.

Jean huffed out what might have been a laugh and moved the pot off the heat to steep. “Do I look suicidal to you?” he asked. “I’m staying out of everything.”

“You just brought it up,” Armin said around a yawn.

“Well, that doesn’t mean I can’t talk about it, does it?”

“Mmph,” Armin said, as Jean poured out another cup for him.

“I think he finally figured it out.”

“What?”

 _“What?”_ Jean mimicked, and Armin grinned. 

“It’s odd,” Armin said in a low voice. “They’re so much alike, but they’re so _different_. I can’t see how…”

“He can’t see how either. That’s what he’s so bent out of shape about.”

Armin sighed. “Probably.”

“Maybe a lesson in humility will be good for him.”

“You’re too hard on him, you know,” Armin said, yawning again.

“Someone should be. What’s the matter with you? Didn’t sleep well?”

“I guess not.” 

“Up all night worrying, huh?” Jean said. He’d meant it jokingly, but once the words were out he saw it was the truth. Armin smiled wanly.

“There’s plenty to think about,” was all he said. 

Mikasa came over, crouching down beside them. Jean poured her tea when she held out a cup. She had her scarf pulled up over her mouth, hiding everything but her large dark eyes.

“They’re talking about heading out.”

Jean grunted. “What do you think we’ll run into today? The Beast, with an army of intelligent Titans at his back?”

“If you’re lucky,” Mikasa said.

Sasha and Connie were meandering over so Jean got to his feet, reluctantly making room. He’d packed up his things already so he walked over to where Eren was saddling up the horses.

It didn’t look like Eren had slept much either. Jean’s face was still bruised from the other night, and he definitely _hadn’t_ forgiven Eren, but he also wasn’t totally unfeeling. 

“Want some help?” 

“Sure,” Eren said, and they finished tacking up in silence.

When the three adults came out Jean watched Eren studiously ignore them. Levi might have glanced at Eren a moment longer than necessary--but then again maybe not. The others finished putting out the campfire, and then they were all saddling up and heading out.

The landscape was changing again. The ground was rockier, the trees sparser on the ground. That was a double-edged sword--no one would be able to sneak up on them, but anyone who might be out there would see them coming a mile away.

Jean spent most of the morning scanning the horizon. The others were quiet--tired, or worrying about the threats facing them, or admiring the landscape; he didn’t know. The Captain was riding at the front of the column again, and watching him Jean suddenly wondered what the _other_ Jean might be like. 

Assuming he was still alive in their world.

Jaeger was a Squad Leader, so probably he was too. And what about Mikasa? Jaeger hadn’t seemed particularly bothered by her existence--unlike Armin, he took her for granted--so that certainly meant she was alive and well in the other world. 

That led to a wistful line of thought he tried not to pursue. Mikasa was riding ahead of him, and he let himself admire the graceful way she carried herself, the smooth perfect lines of her back.

 _At least you know you have a chance,_ he thought sourly, looking over at Eren. 

Eren was still gloomy and withdrawn, ignoring everyone. Jean wished he could have taken a little more pleasure in his bad mood. At first it had been hilarious--it had been easy to see Jaeger as a cool and capable older brother to Eren, to ignore that they were actually the same person. 

Jean had liked Jaeger from the start. He’d reminded him of all the squad leaders he’d respected. He had treated them all with the same steady confidence; he’d even seemed harder on Eren than the rest. Jean had enjoyed Eren’s suffering when it was mainly frustrated rage, but it was hard to now when Eren was just totally dejected.

Before their return to Shinganshina he’d taken note of Eren and Levi’s relative closeness, the same way his sharp mind noted everything. It had never been something he’d thought much about--Captain Levi was Captain Levi, more like a force of nature than a human being, and it had not fallen under the umbrella of things he’d teased Eren about. 

Afterwards when they’d been reduced to only a handful of survivors, there'd been a reason to think about it. Captain Levi had seemed more distant, Eren oddly resentful. And then he’d gone to the training camp to supervise the new soldiers, leaving them with Hanji.

He didn’t have a problem armchair-analyzing Eren or gossiping about him with their friends. Captain Levi was another story. Part of being smart was knowing your limits. But if he _had_ to guess, he would have said that Levi was deeply shaken--maybe even devastated--by the loss of what had surely been the backbone of his life. That he was taking some time to grieve and process the loss.

What he’d observed later--seeing Jaeger’s affection and understanding--made him think that on some level Levi might have even been _protecting_ Eren from that loss. 

It was obvious that Jaeger understood Levi; equally obvious that Eren didn’t. It would be ironic if Jaeger’s arrival here prevented that understanding from ever taking place. 

And Jean looked at Eren with new pity-- _It’s none of my business,_ he told himself uncomfortably. 

 

 

 

 

“We’re getting close,” the Captain said. “Stop here.” As if they’d crossed some invisible boundary, everything had turned lush and green. There were creeping vines everywhere, and Jean spotted a snake moving through the leaves on the forest floor. They’d left the scrublands behind.

The Captain climbed to the top of a tree. “It’s there,” he said. “I see it.”

The rest of them clambered up around him. In the distance Jean saw it--a tiny white glimmer set back into a hill, almost completely hidden by green.

“Eren?” the Captain said to Jaeger, leaning back against his branch.

Jaeger looked distant. “There’s a lot of them,” he said at last. 

“The Beast?”

Jaeger looked uneasy. “Maybe. There’s too many of them for me to tell.” The Captain watched him thoughtfully. 

“Maybe we should go on alone from here.”

“No,” Levi said. “We’ve come with you this far. We’ll go together to the temple.” 

 

 

 

 

Jean kept his eyes on Jaeger as they moved through the trees on the maneuver gear. They’d left the horses behind, and though Jaeger hadn’t protested their plan he’d seemed to be the most unhappy about it.

“Can you feel it?” Jean asked Eren. “What he feels?”

They only had a minute before they would be up in the air, moving fast. Eren looked at him in surprise. “I--feel something,” he said. “But I’m not as good as he is.”

“I think this is going to get fucked up real fast,” Jean said.

Eren sighed. “Yeah.”

Then they were moving. It only took a few minutes to traverse the forest--when they were still a kilometer out from the temple Jaeger yelled out, 

“Stop!” 

And he shot straight up in the air, trying to get as high as he could. They followed him up. 

“Oh holy shit,” Jean said.

Between them and the temple stood an army of Titans.

 

 

 

 

 

“There’s over a thousand of them,” Armin said numbly, somewhere on Jean’s left. He was good at doing quick mental math--even so, Jean was still doing his own count, then multiplying it out by sections. As if that would make a difference.

“We can’t fight our way out of this,” Jaeger said. He sounded oddly calm given the circumstances.

Titans of every shape and size filled the space along the hills. Jean spotted some as small as 3-meters, all the way up to 20-meters. Seeing them all arrayed like that--not moving, just still and _waiting_ awoke an ancient horror. He tried to swallow down his fear.

He felt someone touch him, gentle fingers on his back. Mikasa was standing on the branch next to him. She nodded. He stared at her for a moment, and then slowly nodded back.

“What are we--” Eren said. “Can you control that many?” 

“No,” Jaeger said gently. “We passed a stream, back that way.”

“A stream?” Eren said, baffled.

Jean had overheard a few things in the past few days that he hadn’t quite put together--puzzle pieces rattling around in a box that he took out and shook from time to time. He looked from one to the other of them, no closer to solving this until he saw Levi. The Captain was inscrutable--but Levi had apparently understood whatever it was Jaeger had said, because he looked horrified. 

Jaeger prepared to fly back the way they had come.

“Eren,” the Captain said, and Jaeger turned his head, looking back over his shoulder. “Try not to set the forest on fire this time.”

Jaeger smiled, warmly, and then he flew off. The Captain watched him go, not turning away even after Jaeger had disappeared from sight.

“What--” Eren said, and Jean was suddenly furious with him.

 _Even you can’t be that fucking stupid,_ he thought viciously.

But Eren plodded on, “What is he doing?”

“He needs to activate the coordinate,” the Captain said calmly. 

Eren stared at him. “But you said--before you said that that could kill him. Ow!” he said. Jean had grabbed him by the shoulder. 

“Back off for once in your life!” Jean hissed.

“You--!” Eren said, outraged, but Armin had scrambled up, and they were closing ranks around him. 

“They knew this was going to happen before we even got here,” Armin told him softly.

Eren looked at them--then up at Levi and the Captain. They had their backs to him now, staring out at the threat. “We can’t just let him--” he protested.

“Eren,” Armin said gently. “Think about this. Jaeger was right. We can’t fight our way out.”

“But there has to be another way! He can’t just--”

“They think the Beast is out there, controlling them. We can’t take out a thousand Titans--even if we could, we don’t have enough blades or enough gas. And if we tried--”

“The Beast would wait for a weak spot,” Eren said dully. “And try to grab me.”

“Or Jaeger, maybe,” Armin said seriously. “If there are two of you--that’s two coordinates. It doubles his chances.”

“Shit,” Eren said, pressing a hand to his eyes. “But how can he just let him--”

“They must have talked about what would happen if they were in this situation,” Armin said carefully, and Eren nodded miserably; yes, he could believe that based on what he’d seen for himself.

He slid down so that he was crouching on his branch and leaned back against the trunk of the tree. The others were hovering nearby, and Connie said, his voice pitched low, “So what exactly are we waiting for?”

“From what the Captain said--I think Jaeger’s going to try to immolate the Titans.”

“Damn,” Connie said, impressed. He looked into the distance. “That would be pretty cool if you could do that, huh?” he said, pressing a toe to Eren’s side. But Eren just put his face into his hands, and Connie gave the rest of them an alarmed, ‘sorry-guys-I-was-just-trying-to-help’ look.

“How long do you think--” Jean muttered to Armin after a few more minutes, and then there was an explosion, an enormous wave of heat that sent them all flying out of the tree. Muscle memory took over, and grapples flew through the air as each one of them tried to right themselves and find traction. There were still shock waves echoing out from behind them and it wasn’t safe to stop moving. Out ahead of him Jean saw the Captain flying in the direction Jaeger had gone, and he did his best to follow, while at the same time trying to get above the treeline so he could see what was happening behind him. 

He finally got enough air that he was above the tops of the trees. He used a little extra gas to prolong his flight, and he turned his body in mid-air so that he was flying backwards. The Titans were burning--each one of them a tightly controlled pillar of flame slowly crumbling and falling to the ground.


	10. Chapter 10

Jaeger was floating face down in the stream. He’d stripped down to his underwear, and his bare muscled back was the first thing Jean saw. There was steam rising from his body. Jean couldn’t do anything to stop the helpless dread.

_Jaeger was dead...dead and dreaming. He could see the world from above now, see inside everyone, inside-out, the multitude of worlds stretched out like fanned papers in either direction. He could go anywhere._

The Captain landed in the middle of the stream, heedless of the damage to his boots and clothes, and pulled Jaeger onto his back.

_Time had no meaning here--it was another direction only, and Jaeger flipped back to his birth, looking at his parents...as he watched he grew into a boy...he met Mikasa...he saw the lives of her attackers flicker out…_

His eyes were closed.

_He watched his parents die again. But then they were there--like him freed from time, from mortality. Come, son! they beckoned._

Jean watched as he put two fingers to Jaeger’s throat and pinched his nose shut; then he was breathing into Jaeger’s mouth. After a few minutes of this the Captain carried him out of the water and deposited him on the shore--and Jean wondered if that meant he was alive...or...or not…

_But he knew that they would still be there, if he chose to go. Now there was more to see. He went back again, searching, sifting, lives like so many grains of sand. At last he found the one he was looking for. A small, dark-haired boy in his mother’s arms. Back, back to his birth...forward now. He was alone. And even in the boundlessness of death Eren felt dismayed to see the child alone...instead of departing the mother’s spirit stayed, weeping over her living son. Trying in vain to stroke his hair...he grew thinner and thinner. She saw him then. Please, can’t you do something for him? My boy? I never meant to leave him._

He didn't have the guts to say something as crass as ‘is he alive?’ Neither did anybody else. But the longer this went on…

_What could he do? He pitied the boy...but perhaps he would join his mother soon, they would be united. He no longer knew who he was...why he mattered. The mother’s spirit turned her back to him. And when a man came, to take the boy away and feed him he was glad, though he no longer knew why._

The sun streamed down, a hot gust of wind flew in from behind. The Captain sat on the rocky, muddy shore with Jaeger in his lap.

 _You’ve stayed too long. He had been drifting, watching the boy grow--why always alone? He looked up and saw a man. He might have even known him, once. Do I know you? He puzzled. Once, the man said, I was your father. Father, he said, trying out the word. You need to choose, the man said. Come with us--your mother and I--or return to the world. But you’ll be lost forever if you keep looking… He wanted to protest; there was still so much to see. An infinity of possibilities. He’d only looked at a handful of lives, in one world only--there were so many more to explore… It’s not a power we were meant to have, the man said gently. It’s not a power that can be controlled, though many have tried. My son...you must choose. Then...I suppose if I must...he said...intending to go with the man, who had after all been his father--once. Then the boy looked up. He had still been watching him, even as he had been speaking to his father. Wait, another secret self said. Wait. I know him. He isn’t just a life at all;_ I know him. _And he was thrilled by the tiny countable finite measure of it; one grain of sand in the infinite, yes, my grain of sand...it shouldn’t be possible to know and find one, to separate one out from infinite MANY but it is, and he holds the bright, beloved spark in his hand. Father, he said. How do I go back? Eren, his father said; wistful, sad, proud, even apologetic. Eren! Yes, and suddenly he was EREN again, and he remembered._

“Hey,” Jaeger slurred, from the Captain’s lap. “I didn’t burn it down this time.”

“Guess not,” the Captain said, smiling down at him. Then, as if they were alone, he leaned down and pressed his forehead to Jaeger’s, and Jaeger slowly reached up to link his arms around the Captain’s neck.

Jean grinned stupidly--too cheered by this successful resurrection to care. When he looked around he saw everyone else more or less in the same condition--Armin and Connie grinning like he was, Sasha with her arm around Mikasa, who was smiling through tears. Levi was leaning against a tree in pure relief, and Eren had collapsed on the edge of the clearing with his head on his knees.

 _Poor fucking Eren,_ Jean thought, in unadulterated sympathy for once. He was going to be catatonic when this was over. Assuming they made it back, of course.

 

 

 

 

After a minute Jaeger was pulling himself up--Mikasa came over, carrying his clothes and he nodded his thanks as he pulled his shirt over his head.

“We have to go back,” Jaeger said. “We’ve got to get moving.”

The Captain was frowning. “It can wait,” he said. “You need to rest.”

“No, it can't,” Jaeger said, pulling his pants on. “When I was under I saw everything--we shouldn’t be here. The portal’s dangerous. I saw…” He breathed out. It was already fading--like fragments of a dream, everything that had been clear and stark turning wispy and insubstantial. “It’s destroyed worlds before,” he said abruptly. He looked over at Armin. “After we go through you have to destroy it. You can’t ever use it. They’ve built them--so many times, and it always ends the same way. You need to destroy it.”

He was so serious--Armin wondered why he was addressing _him_ specifically. It was true he’d spent some time thinking about what they could do with that sort of power--assuming they could get it to work. But exploring not only one world, but hundreds? Thousands? More? It was a heady prospect.

As if he’d heard his thoughts Jaeger was shaking his head. “You’d change,” he said solemnly. “You wouldn’t be the same anymore. Eventually you’d forget who you you were, where you came from. Why you were even wandering. Do you remember what you dreamed last night? A wizard, black-heart, a bleached husk wandering an endless desert, except it wasn’t a desert. Each grain of sand was a world, and there’d been an ocean once that covered them. But not anymore.”

Armin stared at him, pale and trembling. “How did you know that,” he whispered.

“I saw it. For a few minutes, I saw everything. It’s this place--using the coordinate so near the temple. It has powers…” he trailed off. He started putting his gear on.

“You can’t fly,” the Captain said.

“You want to bet?” Jaeger replied, cinching the harness tight around his body. He saw the expression on the Captain’s face. “It’s not like before,” he added, in a softer tone. 

“No. You almost drowned this time.”

“Thank goodness for miraculous healing, huh?” Jaeger said. The Captain didn’t smile. Jaeger stepped forward, taking one of his hands. “Using it so near the temple protected me, I think. And Hanji was right about the water.”

“Except for where you almost drowned.”

“That’s what you’re here for,” Jaeger said, pitching his voice so low only he could hear.

“Twenty minutes,” the Captain said with a scowl, taking his hand back and pushing Jaeger away.

“Fine,” Jaeger sighed, giving him a long-suffering look. “But if we destroy the universe it's on you.” 

Jean had been watching all this attentively. Connie nudged him.

“What the hell’s going on?”

“Jaeger has god-like powers. And we have to destroy the portal after they go through so Armin doesn’t become an evil wizard that destroys all life in the universe.” He considered. “Universes. Whatever.”

“Oh,” Connie said. He thought about this for a moment, then said, “Should we be worried about Eren? I mean...he’s got the same powers, right?”

They both looked over at Eren, still sitting under a tree with his head on his knees. Jean was pretty sure he hadn’t moved at all since Jaeger had woken up.

“I mean...I guess it couldn’t hurt,” he said doubtfully. “Everything considered, it’s probably a good thing that he lacks ambition...”

 

 

 

 

“Hey, little brother,” Jaeger was smiling down at him, his wet hair plastered to his head. “You okay?”

“I'm glad you're not dead,” Eren mumbled. Jaeger dropped to the ground, throwing an arm around him and pulling him close.

“Listen,” he said, quiet in his ear. “We might not get the chance to talk again. You've gotta take care of him for us, okay?”

Eren stared at the ground. “He doesn't want me to.”

“Yeah?” Jaeger said, and he grinned. It was the charming grin, the one he’d perfected, the one no one who knew him could refuse. “Do it anyway.”

 

 

 

 

“Was he right?” Mikasa asked. “About your dream?”

Armin nodded, looking ill. “I didn't--I was him in the dream. But I didn't know he was me.”

“He's not,” Mikasa said, with unshakable certainty. “That's what you've got to remember.”

 

 

 

 

“I want you to tell them something,” the Captain said.

Levi looked at him thoughtfully. “You can speak to them. I don't mind.”

He smiled. “Thank you. But no. You need to tell them. After we’ve gone.”

“All right. What do you want me to say?”

“You know.”

 

 

 

 

“I'm starving,” Sasha sighed. “You think they'll let us eat lunch before we have to go fight a hundred Titans or destroy the temple or whatever?”

“Somehow I doubt it,” Jean said.

“I have some barley cakes left in my pouch I think,” Connie said.

“Ah! My hero.”

 

 

 

 

“I think,” Jaeger said to the Captain, “that might be the reason I came here. Armin lived in this world, but not in ours...so he never made it to the temple...here, they would have found it eventually…”

“There’s no such thing as destiny,” the Captain said. “Just choices.”

“Uh-huh,” Jaeger said. He’d seen other Erens, other Levis. It had been nice in that multitude of multitudes to see that some things didn’t change. He got to his feet. “Time’s up.”

The Captain stared straight ahead, not looking at him. One hand fingered the blade handles at his hip, as if seeking reassurance. “You swear on my life that you’re well enough to do this,” he said firmly. “I’m not taking a damn corpse with me through that thing.”

“I promise, Levi.”

He did look at him then. “I'm holding you to it, Eren.”

“I promise we'll make it back together.”

He grunted. “When you're ready then.”

Jaeger nodded and signaled to the others--then they were up, and in the air, and moving.


	11. Chapter 11

They stopped before reaching the hillside in order to keep some gas in reserve. Hundreds of Titans were still smoking and steaming. The ash that floated in the air evaporated as they watched. Soon nothing at all would be left to show that a vast army had stood here.

“The last time I did this I wasn’t awake to see what it looked like afterward,” Jaeger said, looking around curiously.

“There wasn’t anything left to see last time,” the Captain said tartly, and Jaeger laughed. 

There were steps leading up to the temple--hundreds of them, overgrown in places by weeds and grass. “Guess no one’s been here recently.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Can you feel any more Titans?”

Jaeger closed his eyes and breathed deeply--holding that position for several long minutes. “No,” he said at last. “Nothing in my range.”

“Do you think you got the Beast?” the Captain asked carefully, staring up at the temple.

“I don’t know,” Jaeger said. “I’m not even sure he was here at all. But if he was it’s possible he could have gotten away.”

“We’d better hurry then,” the Captain said.

 

 

 

 

The steps were white. 

“It looks like the same material as the Walls,” Jean muttered. 

“Yeah, I think it is,” Armin said, touching the balustrade. “The temple, too, probably.”

They both looked up--but from here it wasn’t visible. The angle of the stairs blocked the approach.

The Captain was at the front, brushing leaves and weeds aside as he made his way upward. Levi had fallen to the rear, several steps behind everyone else. He kept looking behind them.

“You’re going to be all right,” Jaeger said conversationally, dropping back to walk by his side.

Levi didn’t reply at first. “Your scar is gone,” he said, after ten or twenty steps.

Jaeger looked at him in surprise, and then he touched his chest. He smiled slowly. “You’re right. I didn’t notice.”

“Why?” Levi asked. “Why now?”

Jaeger looked up towards the temple. “I think it’s because I saw the other side.” He brushed his still-damp hair back from his forehead. “The other side of everything...I lost myself, for a little while. When I came back, it was like starting over.”

“You don’t seem upset, for almost dying,” Levi said drily.

“No,” Jaeger said, grinning hugely. “I’m going to catch hell from him later, though. Believe me. Don’t think I’m getting off easy.”

He could see Levi smiling, involuntarily, and he counted that a victory. Even though the Captain had counseled him not to meddle anymore he was determined to do what he could for them in the few minutes he had left. His proximity--to death--to the temple--to the center of his powers; none of this would ever come again. In a few days he’d barely remember what he knew now, and he’d already forgotten almost everything from that time.

But he’d remembered the important thing. 

“When the time comes,” Jaeger said, “you need to remember that. You’re going to be all right.”

He knew--they both did--that Jaeger wasn’t talking about Levi’s physical safety. That he wasn’t all right now. 

That he never had been.

Levi didn’t answer, but Jaeger knew he’d heard--and could hear his unspoken skepticism as loudly as if Levi had shouted it. He kept grinning. The rest would be up to Eren. But he was more than content with that.

 

 

 

 

The columns holding up the front of the temple were men and women, alternating. Above them was a frieze, carved figures standing out in high relief. Armin hung back to stare at the image, trying to puzzle it out.

Jaeger and the Captain walked through the open doorway side by side.

The interior was dim and dirty. There’d been doors once, made of the same harder-than-marble material, but they’d broken off or been removed at some point, and the building was open to the elements. Dried leaves and other debris littered the floor, but by the doors were sconces for crystal lights--made from the same material as the ones they’d been using since the coup. Jaeger picked one up and held it aloft, and it came to life in his hands.

“This place is old,” Armin said, looking around. “Way older than a hundred years.”

“That’s it,” Eren said. In the center of the room was a kind of circular altar, covered with more decorative carvings. 

Armin did a double take when he saw it. “It’s huge! How did you ever get it back to Mitras?”

Jaeger was staring at it. “We carried it back in pieces. It was broken when we found it…” he said slowly. “Like someone else had already been there, and destroyed it…” Slowly he crouched down.

“What’s wrong?” the Captain asked sharply. Jaeger was holding his head, looking ill.

“They--it had to have happened the same way. Someone from another world came through and smashed it so it wouldn’t be used. Someone else who had the power of the coordinate.”

The Captain frowned. “You can’t know that. It could have broken another way--our enemies might even have done it.”

“That’s what we thought at first,” Jaeger said. “We could tell it was deliberate...but if it was just to prevent us from gaining knowledge about the Titans, Hanji wondered why they would have destroyed only that, and left the rest of the temple intact.”

“How did she put it back together?” Armin asked curiously. 

“When she had the pieces assembled in the right order it was still incomplete. There were shards missing...fragments. I went to Mitras on my own to look at it for her...she wanted to see if I could use the hardening ability to reseal it. It worked--too well. I ended up here.” Jaeger got to his feet and walked slowly towards it. “It moves,” he said, after studying it for a moment. “I think it works like a dial...Levi, do you remember how it looked before?”

The Captain came over. He’d spent the better part of two days staring at the damn thing while they’d tried to recover Jaeger. The outer ring turned easily at his touch, and he began moving the circles.

“But if you need the portal and the coordinate to world-hop,” Armin reflected, “how could someone have come to your world and broken it? How would they have gotten back afterward?”

“Who says they did?” Jaeger asked. “Whoever it was...maybe they thought doing it was important enough that it was worth dying for.”

“Dying for?!” Armin repeated.

“I said before,” Jaeger said, turning to look at him. “You can’t stay for long, in a world that’s not your own. It causes...instability.”

“What do you--”

“Armin,” Jaeger interrupted gently. “It’s better if you let this one go.”

Armin blushed. “It can’t hurt to be curious,” he said, a little defensively.

“But is it always worth the risk? Someone died to protect this secret. They had a reason.”

“But if you need the coordinate, it had to have been someone like you that broke it.” _Or another you,_ Armin thought.

“No,” Jaeger said. He was looking back at the portal again. The Captain had stopped moving it and was studying the pattern. “You’re forgetting--you only need the coordinate to activate it, not to go through.”

“This is it,” the Captain said confidently, sitting back on his heels. The three interlocking outer rings were each carved with a series of pictures. He’d adjusted them so that a ram, a mountain with clouds, and a man holding a pike were aligned at the top. “Ready?” 

The others had scattered across the room, examining the carvings and pictures on the walls. Only Levi had stayed close, arms crossed over his chest, keeping a watchful eye on them and the open doorway.

Everyone turned to look when the Captain spoke. Jaeger smiled at them all. “Thank you,” he said. “For everything. Take care of each other.”

The Captain gave them one final nod. Jaeger reached for his hand, and he clasped it. They stepped together into the empty space at the center of the rings--and disappeared.

“Wait--!” Armin protested, too late. He stared unhappily at the empty space they’d left behind. “I still had more questions.”

Mikasa put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “He was right,” she said. “Sometimes it’s better not to have all the answers. Let’s get this thing out of here.”

“Wait a minute--”

“Uh-uh,” Mikasa said implacably. She stepped up to the portal. “Not you, Eren. Stay back.”

“Oh--right,” Eren said, dropping his hands to his sides.

The others all gathered around--except for Armin, who was still faintly protesting in the background. Eren patted him consolingly. “It’ll be okay,” he told him. “There’s plenty of other stuff here we can learn from.” Armin gave him a sorrowful look, and he smiled back. 

Jaeger’s leaving had been downright anti-climactic compared to their first meeting, but he didn’t care. He felt like he could _breathe_ again. The oppression had lifted, and he was supremely happy to be the only Eren once more. He glanced over, wondering if Levi felt it too.

“Ugh, this thing weighs a ton!”

“Tip it over you idiots.”

“Oh--right.”

Sasha giggled. 

The boys heaved, and they had it balanced on one edge, like a giant wheel. Levi gauged the height of the door. “I think it’ll fit,” he said, and they began to roll it forward.

“Wait!” Armin cried. He threw himself in front of the door, arms spread wide. “Please! Think about this for a minute! There’s so much we don’t know. We shouldn’t destroy it yet! It might be our only option to discover knowledge about the Titans and their origins! What if someday we run into a problem--and this would have been our only option to solve it?”

Eren suddenly remembered the reason Jaeger and the others had sought this place to begin with. The coordinate. Like a death sentence hanging over Jaeger’s head...and his own. So much had happened in the last few days that he’d all but forgotten that. He hadn’t told the others about it--and he and Levi had been the only ones there when the Captain had told them the truth. 

Levi was watching him, thinking the same thing. Eren gave the tiniest shake of his head. No. Better to be good and die well than try to prolong his life by unnatural--maybe even evil--means. He looked down, but not before he saw the quiet approval on Levi’s face.

Mikasa plucked Armin out of the way, and the wheel spun forward. It made a tremendous noise--bouncing down the hundreds of stairs, clattering and clanging and smashing itself to pieces--and taking giant chunks of the steps with it.

Armin groaned, holding his head in his hands. 

“Come on,” she said, tugging him away. “Let’s make some sketches to take back to Hanji.”

Levi had come over to stand by Eren’s side, and Eren felt the warmth of his hand on his shoulderblade, even beneath the strap of his harness and the cloth of his shirt. He didn’t--couldn’t--look at Levi.

It had been a long time since he’d felt this. Quiet understanding passed between them.

“He was warning me too,” Eren said under his breath, low so the others wouldn’t hear. He’d heard the things Jaeger had said; warnings about Armin going astray, world-ending consequences, but he’d scarcely heeded them. What could make Armin lose sight of right and wrong? 

_Losing me? Or, worse, thinking he could save me…_ Eren looked over to where Armin was standing, touching the stone carvings. _Thinking he had to save me. Because of what we did to save him._

He’d never doubted Armin’s genius. Combined with his Titan powers...with whatever weird powers the coordinate might be capable of...this place...arcane knowledge gleaned from other worlds...maybe Jaeger’s apocalyptic fantasy wasn’t as outlandish as it had first appeared.

He swallowed...and felt Levi squeeze his shoulder.

“You going to tell them?”

Silently he shook his head. “I don’t want any of them to know. Not even Hanji. It might not happen the same way. It might not happen at all. We know what they had to learn the hard way.”

Levi gave an almost imperceptible nod, and though it felt to Eren like he’d already loved him for years this was different. 

The Captain had let Jaeger do the right thing--even if that meant sacrificing his life. He’d been too busy wallowing in his own emotions to pay much attention, but he _had_ noticed that; he’d thought how painful it must have been for the Captain to let Jaeger go. 

That was more than love, it was respect. 

And suddenly Levi’s long-ago avowal to kill him if he ever went rogue felt more like a solemn promise than a threat. Levi could be trusted, he realized, to always do the right thing. No matter the personal cost to himself-- _Erwin, wounded and lying on a rooftop…_

Levi always kept his promises.

 

 

 

 

They blinked in the sudden dimness. Of course, Jaeger had left the lantern--back in the other world. 

The Captain let go of his hand to walk across the temple. A little light was streaming in through the open doorway. 

“You realize,” he said conversationally, “We’re probably at least two-hundred kilometers from the Wall; we have no horses--no supplies--no food or clothes, and not even enough gas left to cross this forest.”

“Uh-huh,” Jaeger said. “Get over here.”

“That’s no way to talk to a senior officer.”

“I’m sorry; get over here, sir.”

He could see Levi fighting a smile. Amazingly he came; Jaeger sank to the floor and pulled him into his lap. 

He’d left Zorah for Mitras a week before Levi had learned of his disappearance, which made it two since they’d last touched like this. Levi hadn’t so much as kissed him in all the time they’d been in the other world. It was one of his unbroken rules that they were never intimate on missions. The hugs had been pushing it, but even Levi wasn’t made of stone.

Eren kissed him now. Long, loving, lush kisses--not just on his mouth, but on his neck and jaw and chin. When Levi was relaxed and pliant in his arms he stopped and just held him close, breathing in his scent and savoring the warmth of his body. 

“There are caches of supplies,” he said. “The closest is probably only fifty kilometers or so from here. That’s a day’s walk, a couple of hours if you transform. And I have no doubt Hanji will be waiting for us at the Wall.”

“You’re putting a lot of faith in her faith in us,” Levi said. His arms were around Eren's neck, and he was threading his fingers through Eren's hair.

Eren laughed. “No. Only the usual amount.” He kissed Levi again, then tugged him to his feet.

They held hands at the top of the stairs--the ones that, in another world, they had so recently climbed. 

“We could rest a while,” Levi offered. 

“I’m fine. I promise.”

Levi nodded. “What about them?”

“Hmm?”

“I saw you talking to him.”

Eren grinned. “I couldn’t resist, I guess.”

“Hmph.”

“You said they might not feel the same, but they do,” Eren said with quiet certainty. “I saw--so many things. And I saw that they’re like us, but--”

“But what?”

“After Shinganshina,” Eren said in a low voice--this was something they hardly spoke of. “I didn’t think Mikasa would ever forgive me. I didn’t think I’d ever forgive myself. But you were there, and…”

Levi squeezed his hand; he didn’t need to finish. Levi had lived it too. 

“That whole first year, I was broken. Like there wasn’t enough of me left to make a person anymore. Mikasa hated me. Armin was dead because of me. But you were there, and…”

Levi had fit him...Levi had mended his broken edges...just as he’d tried to mend Levi’s. And as Levi had learned to control the Titan powers himself, he’d used what he'd learned to teach Eren how to control the coordinate. 

When Eren had turned to him, at the end of that terrible year, he had already known that Levi would say yes. 

“They feel the same,” Eren said quietly. “But it’s like you said. Everybody finds their own path.”

Hand in hand, they began their descent.


	12. Chapter 12

When they finally made it back to Mitras Levi called Eren into his office.

It had been a while since he’d last stood in this room--before their ill-fated expedition to Shinganshina he realized. 

They’d gotten home the day before. Eren stood there, feeling a little trepidation and a little defiance. They still hadn’t talked at all about what had happened, and he wondered what Levi would say to him now that it was over.

When they’d come back into the city--right before the gates of HQ--Levi had turned to speak to them all together.

“I’m proud of you all,” he’d said. “You’ve done well.”

Levi wasn’t generous with praise; they’d stared back at him dumbfounded, the more so when he’d given them the rest of the week off and Hanji had advanced them some pocket money after their debrief.

Levi stood behind his desk facing Eren, his expression cool and serious.

“I’m not going to sleep with you,” Levi said bluntly. “Whoever they were, it’s not us.”

Eren stared at him, flabbergasted, before he practically shouted, “I wouldn’t sleep with you anyway!”

“Good. That’s all. You can go now.”

Eren gaped at him, red-faced and furious, and then he stormed out.

When he had gone Levi let out a long slow breath. If it hadn’t all been so horrible it would have been funny. Jaeger would be furious if he knew. But he’d done the right thing, and it wasn’t like Jaeger would ever find out.

It had taken nearly a week to get them back here. He’d held off on this until now, enduring Eren’s clumsy kindness while they were still in dangerous Titan territory.

And he’d be lying if he said there hadn’t been something sweet about it; Eren was still too much of a child for Levi to have seriously considered him as a lover, but if things had been different he would have accepted the comfort.

 _And what might that have led to, if things had been different? How had it happened for them?_ That was dangerous to think about, so he didn’t.

He leaned forward on his desk, but it came anyway. He’d suffered too many losses this last bloody year. He would have taken the comfort Eren offered, and then in a few months, a year, two…

 _Just don’t,_ he told himself, nauseated, the full force of it finally hitting him. He hadn’t allowed himself to think of this before now--one thing at a time. Just think about the next step. Don’t worry about what comes after.

 _Put it down, just for now._ Jaeger’s voice, gentle and beseeching in his ear, and that only made it worse.

There was a perfect irony to it, wasn’t there? The Captain hadn’t had to choose to let his best friend die; all choice had been taken from him. Afterward there had been no obstacle to their friendship; they’d each lost the person they’d been closest too, they’d been united by the pain of grief, the Titan curse...

Whatever his own burdens he hadn’t forgotten what he owed to his subordinates. He hadn’t let them lose themselves in grief and guilt, he’d done his best to protect them. Even in Eren’s sweet graceless kindness there had been the promise of more; he’d seen the speculation in the looks Eren had given him.

And that was no kind of all right. Eren was too young, too unworldly to be bound up with those kind of expectations. Thinking about _that_ made him feel sick in a different way. Jaeger had been different; fully confident in himself in a way Eren wasn’t yet. You had to be allowed to make mistakes to grow up, to make decisions for yourself. 

He wasn’t the type of man to stray from his chosen path. Even if Eren did someday decide that he was worth the trouble _(not fucking likely)_ his own conscience wouldn’t allow it to be easy. He’d have to rebuff Eren just to be certain Eren was choosing freely. And who would put up with that kind of rejection, especially with _him_ as a prize? Bitterly, he reproached himself: _Let it go._ And he did his best.

 

 

 

 

Eren was seething. He wrestled his rage like a live thing, angrier than he’d been in _years_. Who the hell did Levi think he _was_ to tell him off like that? It wasn’t like he’d done anything to deserve it! He’d tried to be _nice_ on the way back here!

When he got to the end of the corridor he stopped, holding rigidly still, trying to regain control over himself. He knew he ought to go back to his room, complain to Armin, beat the shit out of his pillows, do a hundred push ups until the anger slowly subsided. He knew better than to give in to his anger, and let it control him.

He knew, but he did it anyway. His rage boiled over and then he did something impulsive and stupid. He turned around and practically ran back to Levi’s office, intending to give him a piece of his mind. Indifferent to the consequences. Hell, if Levi _did_ hit him that would be better than this!

In his haste he hadn’t bothered to shut the door behind him, and when he got close he saw that Levi was still standing over his desk looking down and--

Eren stopped short, cold and frightened, all his anger gone. Levi was shaking silently, his hands pressed to the flat top of the desk. It was horrible. 

_He lost Erwin,_ Eren thought wretchedly. And...he lost _him_ too.

Eren turned away. He leaned against the wall, pressing his head to the brick. He could hear Levi behind him--just breathing. Then he slunk away, as quickly and as quietly as he could.

 

 

 

 

 _Jaeger_ would have known what to do. Yes, Jaeger that two-timing scoundrel who had been so much better for his Captain than Eren was.

 _And you hated him for it,_ he thought. _You were ready to murder him when you found out. You didn’t even think for a second that he was doing it to make Levi happy._

_Because when have you ever really cared about what Levi wanted?_

 

 

 

 

The explosion Armin had predicted never came, but it would have been better if it _had._ Over the next few months Levi seemed to be slowly putting himself back together, though he was so distant that even Hanji commented on it. 

Eren, on the other hand…

When Jean was feeling polite he called him a raging asshole. A few months earlier that would have gotten him slapped by Mikasa and glared at by Armin; now they didn’t bother defending him. 

He’d pushed everybody away. To his credit at least if you left him alone he left you alone. Jean had never gotten along better with him. But he was irascible and short-tempered, and so cold to Mikasa when she reached out to him that it made Jean want to kick his teeth in.

The new recruits had been installed at HQ by now and that was at least a welcome distraction--new faces did something to dissipate the ache they all felt, after losing so many friends and comrades. 

Hanji was in a frenzy working on the next generation of weapons. The majority of them were being constructed at workshops in Mitras, but Hanji still had smiths and forgers on hand at HQ to help develop her prototypes. 

Jean was crossing the courtyard one day when he spotted a familiar figure in the smithy. It was darker in there, but the light of the forge was a bright glow silhouetting the men standing against it.

 

 

 

 

“How long have you been doing this?”

Eren blinked at him--Jean had hung around for twenty minutes, watching Eren make tiny replacements pins for the maneuver gear until another man had stepped in to relieve him.

“A while,” Eren said at last.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Jean asked curiously. He’d noticed Eren’s frequent disappearances in between meals and practice, but he’d assumed Eren was just off sulking somewhere. It hadn’t occurred to him that Eren might have been doing something productive.

Eren just shrugged, not angry or annoyed for once, and they walked back to the dorms together. 

“Hanji was always complaining about not having enough people to work the forges,” he said. “When I went over they let me help--carrying water and sweeping and stuff like that at first, but when they saw I was serious they let me learn.”

“I guess I should have noticed something was up with you,” Jean said, reaching out to pinch one of Eren’s (now slightly larger, he realized) biceps--and Eren laughed in surprise, jerking away.

Behind them Jean heard Mikasa cough. When he turned she was smiling at him with real pleasure. 

“Eren’s quitting the Survey Corp to become a blacksmith,” he told her.

“Probably a smart idea,” she said, glancing at Eren. He looked back at her for a moment, then disappeared down the hallway.

“You guys fighting?” Jean asked under his breath when Eren had gone. Mikasa was touchy about him, but he had a feeling she wanted to talk.

“You know how he is,” she said, which was so much more than she would have said a few months ago. “He doesn’t want to do anything,” she added after a moment. “Except push everybody away.”

Jean found himself in the odd position of defending Eren. He knew--for a whole slew of reasons--Mikasa didn’t see Eren’s interest in Captain Levi as anything other than an infatuation. Even though she’d seen Jaeger and the Captain with her own eyes, she’d somehow been able to dismiss them when it came to _her_ Eren. 

What Jean remembered most from that time was how the Captain had let Jaeger go when they’d been in the temple forest. How dignified he had been. He had known--they both had--that there was a good chance Jaeger wouldn’t survive what he was about to do.

He remembered their reunion afterwards.

Whatever else you wanted to say about Eren--Jean believed his love for Levi was sincere, his unhappiness real.

“He has been through a lot,” he said lamely.

She looked at him sharply. “If he just didn’t care so much about him his life would be a lot easier!”

Never in his life had Jean wanted so badly to say, “Look who’s talking.” What he actually said--gently--was, “We can’t control who we care about, Mikasa.”

And maybe that had been too honest, because she walked away without answering, avoiding his eyes.

 

 

 

 

“Eren?” he heard Mikasa calling for him, and he slammed his door shut and threw the bolt. He heard her pause for a moment outside, and then slowly walk away.

He pressed his palms to his forehead. Working at the smithy--training--those were good distractions. But in the end he was always alone with his thoughts. Levi hadn’t been at breakfast, and all day he’d been fantasizing about going to find him. He wished he could just run up to Levi and beg forgiveness (for every selfish stupid thing he’d ever done), but there was nothing he could think to say or do that didn’t have him second- and third- and fourth-guessing himself. Nothing that wasn’t colored by his memories of Jaeger, of Jaeger and Levi, and then...Jaeger and the Captain.

He knew Levi had seen it too. He’d noticed in the days following Jaeger’s arrival how much happier Levi had been. At the time he’d been too busy loathing Jaeger to heed it, but now he thought he understood.

When the Captain had showed up part of Levi had disappeared, going remote and unreachable again. It hadn’t been jealousy. It had been sadness. 

“Eren?” Armin was knocking at the door.

“I’m fine,” he said.

 _Eren_ had been jealous. How could you look at that perfect partnership and not be? But Levi hadn’t. He’d only been sad.

_He knew it was impossible, _Eren thought, hating himself. _“Whoever they were, it’s not us.”___

__“Eren?” Armin had gone away earlier, but he was back now._ _

__Eren sighed and got up, flinging the door open. “Armin I’m fine, okay--”_ _

__“The Captain’s gone,” Armin said._ _

__“Huh?”_ _

__“He left this morning. Hanji just told us.”_ _

__“He left? But, where?”_ _

__“I don’t know...she just said he was going away for a few days...maybe a week.”_ _

__“Oh,” Eren said. “Okay.” Then he took off running._ _

__“Eren? Eren!”_ _

 

 

 

 

__That morning when Hanji had walked into her office, still yawning, Levi had been there already._ _

__“Levi,” she’d said in surprise._ _

__“Hanji,” he’d said. “I think I need to go away for a little while.”_ _

__She’d looked startled. “Of course,” she’d said after a moment. “Whatever you need.”_ _

 

 

 

 

 _You need to let it go,_ he told himself. _All of it._

__He stood by the lake, the breeze that blew off it rustling the green cape around his shoulders. He’d been carrying this too long._ _

__Erwin had lied to him, and then he had left him behind._ _

He’d never really slept well, but the nightmares were worse lately. In one of them everyone in the world had died. He was the only one left. He fought the Titans until he ran out of gas and blades, and then he waited, closing his eyes, thinking _finally._ But when he opened them he’d find the battle had started anew; he’d realize he _couldn’t_ die.

__So many losses. He had believed in Erwin, believed in his cause, believed that those deaths had happened for a reason. Hand after hand, reaching out to him in friendship or love or affection or comradeship; all cold and lifeless in the end._ _

__He opened his eyes. The Beast Titan was standing on the other side of the lake, grinning at him, nightmare writ large. He didn’t feel anything then, not even surprise._ _

__Out loud he said, “I don’t know if I can do this any more.” He tightened the straps on his harness, hands automatically going to his hips to check blades and gas. The dead did not answer. “If I fail you, please forgive me. I will try my best.”_ _

__But if there was a god, any god, let this be his last battle--please, only let it end._ _

__The Beast was smiling at him. “It wasn’t very clever of you to come alone,” he said._ _

__“I’m not alone,” Levi said. The dead were with him._ _

 

 

 

 

__“Let me go after him.”_ _

__“Eren,” she said, “he wants to be alone. I can’t let you run off after him after only a few hours!”_ _

__“Please, Hanji!” Eren said desperately. “I have a terrible feeling about this.”_ _

__“He’s not far away, Eren,” Hanji sighed. “And I promised him--”_ _

__“He’s at the Mirrorlake cabin, isn’t he?” Eren said quickly._ _

__“Eren--”_ _

__He raced past her._ _

__“Eren, get back here!”_ _

 

 

 

 

He took his horse from the stable, running out full tilt and nearly bowling over a handful of the new recruits in the process.

_Little brother, you have to take care of him for us._

Holy shit, how well he’d done exactly the opposite. He’d been too busy wallowing in his own self-pity these last few months, _wanting_ to work things out with Levi, yeah, but too terrified of more rejection to take any action...

Blades, blades, the bright shining light spinning; _Levi, he thought, Levi--_

The Beast moving, Levi moving.

_Oh no, no, no, no._

He transformed.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys you're welcome.

When Levi woke up Eren was there. Not just in the room, or nearby. But _next to him, in the bed._

He was still asleep--lips parted and drooling on Levi’s pillow. One leg pressed warmly to Levi’s thigh, an arm draped along his back.

Levi sat up too quickly, wincing at the sharp pain in his side. He noted irritably that he was naked from the waist up. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, startling Eren awake. Eren blinked at him for a moment--then scowled.

“I had to stay,” he said peevishly, not moving off the pillows. “You were delirious and you wouldn’t keep still!”

Levi was looking at him crossly, as though that were _his_ fault!

“I can punch you, you know,” he snapped, annoyed by Eren’s tone.

“Go ahead!” Eren yelled back.

Levi grabbed Eren roughly by the front of his shirt and yanked him upright so that they were face to face.

It was only then that he realized how close Eren was to tears, that all his anger was nothing but bravado.

“Eren...” he said, surprised. Eren jerked out of his hold and stumbled to the floor before staggering to his feet. “I’m sorry I’m so disgusting to you!” he hollered over his shoulder as he fled.

Levi groaned. Carefully he let himself fall back against the pillows. He touched his bandaged side--the ribs felt bruised, not broken. Small mercies. He lay there for a moment before forcing himself up. His bag was open on the floor, and with one hand he pulled out a white cotton shirt. Gingerly he slipped it on over his head before padding across the room on bare feet.

 _He’s just a kid, remember?_ he told himself in exasperation. He'd been startled, yes, but he shouldn’t have overreacted so much...

Eren was standing outside at the edge of the water, skipping stones. The lake air was chilly, and Levi shivered in his thin shirt and bare feet. He approached slowly, as much in deference to his injuries as to give Eren time to hear him coming. He tensed up as Levi got close and he stopped throwing the stones, staring out at the surface of the lake.

“I’m sorry,” Levi said.

Eren shrugged. “I don’t care,” he said tonelessly. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Okay,” Levi said, and then he grabbed him in a rough embrace. Eren struggled, but Levi held fast. They grappled and Levi caught sight of Eren’s face: his sudden flash of insight, his defiance, his determination to self-destruct.

 _Fuck you,_ and _fine,_ and _you’ll let me go_ now.

 _Oh, you bastard,_ Levi thought, impressed. Eren was bracing himself for a blow that wouldn’t come. He couldn’t have planned this any better. 

In spite of all his scruples there was no way Levi could turn away now. 

When Eren kissed him--full on the mouth, yes, and more like a punch than a kiss--Levi’s lips were already softly parted.

Eren fell to his knees in shock, scrabbling at Levi’s shoulder. Levi turned his head and ran his tongue over Eren’s lips, and Eren made some noise--surprise or indignation or some combination thereof.

Levi pulled away. “Let’s go in,” he said and Eren stared back, astonished.

 

 

 

 

 

Levi sat on the edge of the bed, worn out from the brief walk back--or maybe just _everything else._ Details were coming back, memory of his last fight with the Beast, Eren’s sudden precipitous arrival. Eren had followed him in but was warily keeping his distance, arms crossed over his chest and shivering every now and then from nerves.

When Levi just sat there--not speaking--he began to relax. He unfolded his arms, and then hesitantly crossed the room. Sitting down next to Levi--not touching but close.

“I am sorry,” Levi said at last. “You startled me. I don’t--I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

Eren looked unhappy. “I didn’t mean--I wasn’t trying to--”

“I know.”

“It’s just that you were so ill, and if I was there--” He looked away; broken and low-voiced he added, “I thought, maybe, I reminded you of _him_.”

 _Oh, Eren…_ If anything should hold him back it’s this; any reasonable person would not set against themselves this way. What does it say about Eren’s self-doubt, his naivete, that he can believe Levi could love Jaeger, but not _him?_

And what does it say about him that he stayed anyway, even believing himself unwanted?

It makes Eren’s hysterical overreaction understandable, makes his own overreaction callous and doubly cruel.

“I wasn't lying before,” he rasped. “They're not us. It's not a blueprint or a promise or a guarantee. 

“Their triumphs, their struggles are theirs.”

Eren was staring at him, going perfectly still as he took Levi’s meaning.

“I don't care,” he said breathlessly.

 _Of course you don't,_ Levi thought as Eren kissed him.

 

 

 

 

 

“Please,” he said his voice breaking on that one word. Another sob.

 _I can’t do this if you’re going to keep crying,_ he wanted to say. He didn’t. He kissed Eren savage and open-mouthed, and Eren moaned: _yes, like that._ He licked inside to run his tongue along Eren’s teeth.

He slid his hand down over Eren’s belly, under his waistband. Dragging his hand through his pubic hair to fondle his cock. Eren moaned into him, arching up, totally open and obvious. It was like being punched in the gut, flayed alive. Had anyone ever wanted him so much?

Eren had his fists tight in his hair--holding him in place. He kissed back aggressively, wrapping his legs around the outside of Levi’s thighs. His body was an open invitation-- _do me_ he said, one hand coming down to cup Levi’s ass and pull him in.

There was nothing slow or easy about this. This was fighting, this was _fuck me or die,_ this was Eren _starved_ for it, and rolling them over to pull at his clothes. Forgetting all about Levi’s bruised ribs, and Levi forgetting them too. His cock felt like iron between his thighs, and when Eren had gotten them naked he found his way there, forehead coming to rest on Levi’s belly. He ran his tongue over the tip of Levi’s cock before kissing and licking every inch of him. 

In spite of all that boldness he didn’t try to bite, and Levi was a little unnerved by the strength of his own desire. Feeling an odd chagrin he recalled how it had been with Jaeger… _I know what you like,_ Jaeger had said, and that had been true enough; Levi hadn’t had to ask for anything. Jaeger had done things to him he hadn’t even _known_ he liked.

He closed his eyes, flushed with heat, more surprised by _himself_ than anything else. Sex had been infrequent enough that he hadn’t had the opportunity to develop an affinity for anything in particular--until now, anyway. 

Because fuck, fuck him he was going to have to _ask_ for it…this tender sweetness wasn't enough, and his cock was raw and hard and aching...

“Eren...harder…” He really couldn’t do this. A long, long pause while he tried. He swallowed.

“Your teeth,” he said at last. “I need--” Eren understood; he arched up to grab his own cock, and scraped his teeth roughly over Levi’s tender length. Levi cried out and pulled too hard at Eren’s hair, but _oh god_ it was good. Eren got it, Eren got _him_. He alternated between teeth and lips and tongue. Levi moaned every time Eren bit him, tugging desperately at his hair. Eren’s hands were on his hips, sweetly encouraging, and Levi moved--short, shuddery, erratic thrusts.

He knew Eren could tell when he was close...instead of pushing him away he’d started sucking harder. Too much, and he cried out when he came, helplessly, feeling Eren dig his nails into his thighs, pain only giving edge to pleasure. Long steady stream of fluid spilling over Eren’s tongue and chin, his orgasm stretching on and on...

Eren rolled to the side, exhaling slowly. Levi could feel Eren’s cock snug against his hip as Eren pressed into him. He ran a hand--undeniably possessive--along Eren’s back, his flank, before rubbing his thumb over the slick head of his cock. 

“You--what do you want.”

Eren buried his face in Levi’s neck, trying to catch his breath. He was turned-on enough that he thought he could just rub against Levi two or three times and come his brains out.

Because holy fuck. Even in his deepest darkest fantasies Levi had never begged him for _anything._ Just thinking about it made him bite back a whimper. And what he wanted...

 _He already knows what you want. But you can still make him ask for it,_ an evil little voice said in his head, and he gasped, his cock jumping in Levi's hand.

“You have to say it,” Eren whispered. His voice was tentative, but his eyes were heavy, drugged. 

He had a hand low on the small of Levi’s back, and somehow that was more intimate, more terrifying than anything. Levi swallowed. He hadn’t gotten soft after coming. He was still more than half-hard.

“I want to fuck you,” Levi said, his voice low like an embrace.

“Yes,” Eren breathed. “Yes.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Late that afternoon Hanji walked up the path to the cabin, whistling to herself. It was a lovely day, and she was enjoying the sun and the light breeze blowing up off of the lake. She wanted to check in on Levi, and see how he was doing, make sure he was still healing okay. And if he was awake, whether he needed to be rescued from Eren’s clutches. 

She had almost reached the door when she heard it: Eren’s voice. They had to have left a window open (thank god, she’d later think).

“Levi...Levi...yes… _yes,_ like that, oh god...harder!”

“Whoops,” Hanji said, turning rapidly on her heel and walking back the way she’d come.

Halfway down she met Armin and Mikasa on the path, and without breaking her stride she turned them both around and dragged them along in her wake.

“We were just--”

“They’re fine!” Hanji said brightly, and Mikasa and Armin exchanged looks.

“Oh.” Mikasa said, with more than usual blandness.

That gave Hanji pause. “Wait a minute. Has this been going on--”

“I don’t think so,” Armin said quickly. “Um. The other Levi and Eren, they were…”

“Armin!” she said, outraged. “And you didn’t tell me!”

“Well…” he squirmed.

“And _those two_ knew all about it?” she said, craning her head to take a quick look back at the cabin. “A fine intelligence officer you’ll make, not telling me what’s going on with my own people! Ugh, no _wonder_ this place has been such a mess lately.” Hanji’s words were harsh but there was real relief behind them; for months Eren had been distracted and weepy, and Levi--paralyzed by grief over their terrible losses--hadn’t been much better.

She had a sudden flash of the older Eren, who had practically charmed the pants _off of her._ She shook her head. Poor kid. Competing with your older, cooler self for the object of your affections--that would be enough to give anyone a complex. And Levi wasn't exactly a model of healthy emotional expression anyway.

Giving them to _each other_ was a better solution than anything she could have devised. 

 

 

 

 

 

Later:

“Um.” Eren said, looking over at Levi. He’d been half-asleep and drifting, and he’d started into sudden wakefulness. Levi was lying beside him, eyes closed.

“Mm.”

“How are your ribs?” Eren asked weakly.

Levi considered this. “Broken now,” he said at last, and Eren giggled, covering his face with his hands.

“Sorry…” He peeked over at Levi, and saw that he was smiling.

He had a sudden flash of--of what they’d just done, the things he’d _said_...and he was simultaneously mortified and extremely aroused, even though he'd come twice already. Levi shifted in the bed and Eren saw bright red marks on his thighs. He’d left them behind when he’d dug his nails in…

 _He’d kept pulling out at the beginning, to slick himself up with more oil...his hands had been steady but Eren had heard his shaky breaths...and then when he’d finally pushed in all the way and started moving Eren had just watched his face, rapt, for the first five minutes. His body had been solid, pinning Eren down. When he’d tried to move too fast, Levi had stopped him--and Eren had blushed furiously but Levi had_ seen, _and he’d smiled knowingly. He’d reached up almost lazily to hold Eren’s arms down over his head, and even though Eren had struggled mightily he hadn’t been able to budge him...he’d stared up at Levi, open-mouthed and amazed. Levi had moved one hand down, keeping him in place with just the other. He’d barely needed to touch him after that before he was coming everywhere._

Holy shit he hadn’t played this even remotely cool. He sat there cringing at himself for a while, until one of Levi’s arms slid around his waist, hand coming to rest on his inner thigh.

Oh. _Oh._

“You don’t have to,” he said hopefully, and in one swift move Levi had him pinned to the bed again, and Eren’s arms were around his back, and he was saying, “Oh my god, yes,” drunkenly and not caring at all.

 

 

 

 

 

Later still:

“Um...I'm probably good now,” Eren said faintly.

“Uh-huh. Move over.” Levi kicked him out of the bed and Eren sighed, going to sit on the rug. He’d known it was going to come to this. 

“You’re not just sitting there. Help me with this.”

“Okay,” Eren said, marvelling at the fact that they were stripping the bed together. Naked. When the sheets were in a pile on the floor Levi swept them up into his arms and headed for the door.

“You’re going outside--like that?!” Eren squeaked.

“So?”

“Everybody--everybody’s camped just down the road!”

Levi stopped to frown at him. “Who’s everybody?”

Eren took a deep breath (sneaking a look at Levi’s attractive backside at the same time). “When I came after you--Hanji didn’t exactly give permission, so she was right behind me, with the others...and then you were injured, and they stayed.”

Levi rolled his eyes. “Oh, Hanji,” he said dismissively. “What’s she going to do? She probably wouldn’t even notice.” He opened the bedroom door and Eren heard him moving through the house.

“Ughhh,” Eren said, covering his face for a moment. Then he grabbed two towels and ran after him.

There was laundry equipment at the back of the house, and Levi was dumping lakewater into a bucket. When the sheets were soaking he waded into the lake up to his knees, then dove in, surfacing ten yards out. Eren looked uneasily back at the road and then stuck his toes in, making a face.

“It’s cold,” he complained, shivering and darting quick looks behind him as he picked his way in. 

“You’re awfully shy for someone who grew up in the barracks,” Levi observed.

Eren glared at him. “Says the man who never uses the communal showers.”

“Who wants to see a lot of awkward weirdos naked? Not me.”

“This is freezing!”

Levi swam close enough to put his arms around him. Eren had to remind himself to breathe. Levi’s skin was warm despite the coolness of the water. It wasn’t so bad then.

 

 

 

 

 

And then:

They sat on the towels looking out at the lake. They’d finished wringing out the sheets and they were drying on the clothesline behind them. It wasn’t as cold in the sun, but Eren had his arm around Levi; he wished he'd go back inside. Levi had been feverish for days, and he wasn’t recovered yet. But so far he had refused to move.

“Is there anything to eat?”

“Yeah. Hanji’s been bringing supplies up.”

“Oh. _Oh.”_ Levi said, and then he laughed.

“What?” Eren said, twisting to look at him.

“Nothing.”

“You can’t say ‘nothing’ after that!”

“Hmm,” Levi said, picking up his towel and heading for the cabin.

“Levi!”

“You don’t really want to know.”

“If you don’t tell me--!” Eren scrambled up to chase after him.

“Hanji was here earlier.”

Eren stared at him.

“I heard her,” Levi explained, “coming up the path; well, I heard someone. It must have been her.”

“Earlier?” Eren said, sweet naive confusion all over his face.

Levi just smiled.

“No,” Eren said slowly. “Oh no. She didn’t hear me…”

“I told you you didn’t want to know.”

Eren buried his face in his hands. “I can’t ever face her ever again!” he wailed.

“There, there,” Levi said unsympathetically, patting his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure she’ll be happy to have a new avenue of research to explore.”

“No!”

They were back in the bedroom now, getting dressed. Eren glared at him as he pulled his socks on. “You have to protect me from her.”

“We’ll see.” Levi padded back out to the main room. There was a basket on the table and he began picking through it. They ate together in the kitchen, and Levi savored cup after cup of tea; Eren was still grumpy, but he’d put the water on to boil again as soon as the first kettle had been emptied. Levi felt remarkably good. 

He wondered if it would wear off, but idly, the way you wondered about rain on a sunny day. 

“How come…” they’d been quiet for twenty minutes. Eren had been working up to this, turning his mug over and over in his hands, and Levi had been patiently waiting.

“Hmm.”

“When we came back. Why did you tell me you didn’t want me. If you did.” Eren’s voice was low and a little raw; he darted an accusing glance Levi’s way.

In thinking about this he’d only thought about the difficulties; their age difference. Eren’s inexperience (his too, if he’s honest). The chain of command. The fact that Eren always wanted to please him. How dangerous that was in a relationship with an imbalance of power.

He hadn’t thought--or hadn’t allowed himself to think--why it was they were attracted to each other in the first place. In ways he can’t fully describe or understand Eren slots in with him better than anyone ever has. With everyone else--even the people he’s been closest to--there’ve been rough edges to be sawn off or rubbed against. 

Eren fit him like a mated piece. 

He’d felt the maturation of that with Jaeger, and seen it from the outside when the Captain had turned up. 

“Eren.”

Eren looked at him. Steady.

“This isn’t even a good idea now.”

“They thought it was.”

“I told you…”

“What you told me doesn’t make any sense.”

“If you expect that from me--if I expect it from you--how is that fair to either of us if we can’t ever get there? And we _can’t._ They’re different people--their experiences have shaped them, just like ours have. If you wanted something different, if you stayed with me out of a sense of obligation…”

Eren let out a slow breath. “So you don’t trust me, is what you’re saying.” Levi didn’t miss the anger in his voice. 

“Eren.” And he hadn’t thought of this, either; hadn’t thought of it from Eren’s perspective. What he might want, what he might hope for himself. There was something wonderful even in Eren’s anger. His willingness to defend himself, to fight back. To ask, to demand.

And in bed...the night he’d spent with Jaeger had been wonderful, but it had been easy. With Eren everything was explosive. They were figuring things out together, and it had been equable, so much more than he could have anticipated.

“You know I love you too much to want to see you hurt.”

Eren stared at him in wide-eyed wonderment. Totally disarmed he got up and came to Levi, drawn by an invisible thread. He sat in Levi’s lap (uninvited.)

“Me too, I love you too, so much…” and he was kissing him, which was just as well. Levi was a little amused and a little alarmed by Eren’s babbling, and his embarrassment afterward had been endearing. But there were _limits._

 

 

 

 

 

That whole week was like a honeymoon. When Hanji visited the next day--making as much noise as possible as she approached the cabin, to Eren’s abject mortification, and Levi’s amusement--she was persuaded Levi was well enough that there was no danger in the rest of them returning to HQ. She left them with a cache of supplies and told them to be back by Saturday.

They spent the time sleeping and fucking. Eren had to be persuaded that it was all right to reciprocate. If things had been different Levi would have let him have more time to work up to it, but he knew how unlikely it was that they would get an opportunity like this again. 

They were outside one night, stargazing, lying on sleeping bags, a red wool blanket pulled over them. Levi pressed the bottle of oil into Eren’s hand, guiding him. Eren’s hands were shaking. “Are you sure?” he kept mumbling, all the way up until his long length was pressed inside Levi’s body.

His face was buried in Levi’s neck, and he was almost crying in pleasure. Levi stroked his hair; amusement still his chiefest emotion. He wondered if this would finally be the thing to silence Eren, but no:

“You feel so good. Oh, oh god...is that okay? Like that, can I--is it okay if I--oh yeah, yeah, _yeah…”_

In the end he still had to take control; Eren was too much of a useless mess to set a proper pace--he kept staring at Levi with amazed, sex-drunk eyes and forgetting to move. It was hilarious but frustrating. Levi flipped them over so that he was on top. The blanket had fallen off somewhere, and though the night air was cold they didn’t feel it.

Levi was moving, fast and regular, a pace he knew Eren liked. Eren had his hands on Levi’s hips, urging him on, and then he pulled one arm up to cover his mouth; he arched up; he was biting his arm--

“If you transform right now--” Levi threatened.

“God!” Eren said, glaring at him. Levi looked as if he was trying not to laugh. “Why would you say that!”

He was mad enough that although he’d been close it pulled him right back from the edge. He flipped them over, rolling so that Levi was beneath him and started moving hard and fast. He kept his eyes shut so he wouldn't see Levi smirking at him.

But when he did peek Levi’s eyes were half-closed. And when he pushed all the way in--at the end of his thrust--Levi’s expression changed.

 _Oh,_ he thought. _Oh._ He swallowed and did it again, and Levi breathed out. He canted his hips a little, playing with the angle.

“Higher.”

Eren swallowed again. “Like...that? There?”

“Yeah. That’s good.” One hand on Eren’s hip, tracing lazy circles.

“I can’t--I’m not going to last like this--”

“It’s okay. I want you to come.”

And Eren whimpered and did.

 

 

 

 

 

When they finally made it back at the end of the week Eren was so wild-eyed and fucked-out he was almost beyond embarrassment. He gave his friends the most cursory greeting and then collapsed face-down on his bed and didn’t move for eight hours. 

Jean looked around at the rest of them. They’d been speculating all week; being faced with reality was something else. “I just want to be clear. We’re pretending this isn’t happening, right?”

Mikasa looked seriously pissed off. “I’m going to say something--”

“No!” the other four said in unison, and she scowled at them.

“Holy shit Mikasa, don’t you want to live?” Connie asked, amazed.

“I’m not afraid of him!”

“I’m talking about Eren!”

She blanched, and looked over in the direction of Eren’s room. “What are you…”

“He’s not going to be happy if you try to take his favorite toy away,” Jean pointed out. 

She looked genuinely upset. “But I--but he--”

Jean put an arm around her. “Denial is a wonderful thing, Mikasa,” he said soothingly. “Plus, think how much happier everyone will be now.”

“He shouldn't be in that condition!” 

Jean winced and looked pleadingly at Armin, who took a deep breath.

“He did look happy, Mikasa.”

 

 

 

 

 

It was more than that. Eren had stopped moping over night. 

Armin was mending his gear one afternoon (or _trying_ to) when Jean wandered in and took the leather straps and thread and needle right out of his hands. He sat down on a stool and his fingers began moving, nimbly threading the needle and pushing it through the thick leather with a thimble. 

“I figured out how he turns into Jaeger.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, it’s getting his _brains_ fucked out on a regular basis, that’s all he needs to be a decent human being.”

Armin laughed. “Does that mean you like him now?”

“Sure. He struts around here like one of Historia’s brainless peacocks--looking around like he has no idea where he is half the time--This morning he came down with his _gear_ on backwards, Armin. I had to fix it for him, and the whole time he just stood there with this idiotic smile on his face...

“I think it’s a good thing he’s got the healing abilities, otherwise Levi would have killed him by now.”

“Jean!” Armin protested, gasping for breath between bouts of laughter.

“You can’t hate someone like that, Armin,” Jean said seriously. He tied off a thread, breaking it with his teeth. He put the first strap down and started on the second one. “I’m fucking _jealous_. Not of them, obviously, but I wish there was someone fucking _my_ brains out on a regular basis.”

“Jaeger wasn’t like that,” Armin gasped weakly.

“Well, I mean he’s gotta get used to it at some point. He’s only got, what? Six, seven years? Probably he gets some boost to brainpower when his body finally adjusts. Jaeger was definitely smarter.”

“What are you two doing?” Mikasa asked suspiciously. She stood in the doorway of Armin’s room. Armin was lying on the floor, laughing hysterically while Jean sat nearby on a stool mending some harness leather.

“Nothing. Wishing somebody loved us. Do you love us, Mikasa?”

“Ugh,” she said, twitching her scarf up and walking away. But Jean thought he’d seen the corner of her mouth turn up in a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok you guys thank you for reading! It's been my pleasure to share this story with you. If you liked it I would love it if you commented <3 !


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